,,post-,,prandial ,,philosophy ,by ,,grant ,,allen ,,author ,,of ,,the ,,evolutionist ,,at ,,large1 ,,etc4 ,,london3 ,,chatto ,,windus #ahid ,,preface ,these ,essays appeared originally in ,the ,westminster ,gazette1 and have only been so far modified here as is necessary for purposes of volume publication4 ,they aim at being suggestive rather than exhaustive3 ,i shall be satisfied if ,i have provoked thought without following out each train to a logical conclusion4 ,most of the ,essays are just what they pretend to be--crystallisations into writing of ideas suggested in familiar conversation4 ,g4 ,a4 ,hind ,head1 ,march #ahid4 ,,contents ,,page ,i4 ,,the ,,struggle ,,for ,,life ,,among ,,languages #a ,,ii4 ,,in ,,the ,,matter ,,of ,,aristocracy #i ,,iii4 ,,science ,,in ,,education #ah ,,iv4 ,,the ,,theory ,,of ,,scapegoats #bg ,v4 ,,american ,,duchesses #ce ,,vi4 ,,is ,,england ,,played ,,out8 #dd ,,vii4 ,,the ,,game ,,and ,,the ,,rules #ec ,,viii4 ,,the ,r,,le ,,of ,,prophet #fa ,,ix4 ,,the ,,romance ,,of ,,the ,,clash ,,of ,,races #gj ,x4 ,,the ,,monopolist ,,instincts #gi ,,xi4 ,,mere ,,amateurs #hg ,,xii4 ,a ,,squalid ,,village #ie ,,xiii4 ,,concerning ,,zeitgeist #ajd ,,xiv4 ,,the ,,decline ,,of ,,marriage #aab ,,xv4 ,,eye versus ,,ear #abb ,,xvi4 ,,the ,,political ,,pupa #acj ,,xvii4 ,,on ,,the ,,casino ,,terrace #ach ,,xviii4 ,,the ,,celtic ,,fringe #adg ,,xix4 ,,imagination ,,and ,,radicals #aef ,,xx4 ,,about ,,abroad #afe ,,xxi4 ,,why ,,england ,,is ,,beautiful #agc ,,xxii4 ,,anent ,,art ,,production #ahb ,,xxiii4 ,a ,,glimpse ,,into ,,utopia #aij ,,xxiv4 ,,of ,,second ,,chambers #aii ,,xxv4 ,a ,,point ,,of ,,criticism #bjg ,,post-,,prandial ,,philosophy ,i4 ,,the ,,struggle ,,for ,,life ,,among ,,languages4 ,a distinguished ,positivist friend of mine1 who is in most matters a practical man of the world1 astonished me greatly the other day at ,venice1 by the grave remark that ,italian was destined to be the language of the future4 ,i found on inquiry he had inherited the notion direct from ,auguste ,comte1 who justified it on the purely sentimental and unpractical ground that the tongue of ,dante had never yet been associated with any great national defeat or disgrace4 ,the idea surprised me not a little2 because it displays such a profound misconception of what language is1 and why people use it4 ,the speech of the world will not be decided on mere grounds of sentiment3 the tongue that survives will not survive because it is so admirably adapted for the manufacture of rhymes or epigrams4 ,stern need compels4 ,frenchmen and ,germans1 in congress assembled1 and looking about them for a means of intercommunication1 might indeed agree to accept ,italian then and there as an international compromise4 ,but congresses don't make or unmake the habits of everyday life2 and the growth or spread of a language is a thing as much beyond our deliberate human control as the rise or fall of the barometer4 ,my friend's remark1 however1 set me thinking and watching what are really the languages now gaining and spreading over the civilised world2 it set me speculating what will be the outcome of this gain and spread in another half century4 ,and the results are these3 ,vastly the most growing and absorbing of all languages at the present moment is the ,english1 which is almost everywhere swallowing up the overflow of ,german1 ,scandinavian1 ,dutch1 and ,russian4 ,next to it1 probably1 in point of vitality1 comes ,spanish1 which is swallowing up the overflow of ,french1 ,italian1 and the other ,latin races4 ,third1 perhaps1 ranks ,russian1 destined to become in time the spoken tongue of a vast tract in ,northern and ,central ,asia4 ,among non-,european languages1 three seem to be gaining fast3 ,chinese1 ,malay1 ,arabic4 ,of the doomed tongues1 on the other hand1 the most hopeless is ,french1 which is losing all round2 while ,italian1 ,german1 and ,dutch are either quite at a standstill or slightly retrograding4 ,the world is now round4 ,by the middle of the twentieth century1 in all probability1 ,english will be its dominant speech2 and the ,english-speaking peoples1 a heterogeneous conglomerate of all nationalities1 will control between them the destinies of mankind4 ,spanish will be the language of half the populous southern hemisphere4 ,russian will spread over a moiety of ,asia4 ,chinese1 ,malay1 ,arabic1 will divide among themselves the less civilised parts of ,africa and the ,east4 ,but ,french1 ,german1 and ,italian will be insignificant and dwindling ,european dialects1 as numerically unimportant as ,flemish or ,danish in our own day4 ,and why8 ,not because ,shakespeare wrote in ,english1 but because the ,english language has already got a firm hold of all those portions of the earth's surface which are most absorbing the overflow of ,european populations4 ,germans and ,scandinavians and ,russians emigrate by the thousand now to all parts of the ,united ,states and the north-west of ,canada4 ,in the first generation they may still retain their ancestral speech2 but their children have all to learn ,english4 ,in ,australia and ,new ,zealand the same thing is happening4 ,in ,south ,africa ,dutch had got a footing1 it is true2 but it is fast losing it4 ,the newcomers learn ,english1 and though the elder ,boers stick with ,boer conservatism to their native tongue1 young ,piet and young ,paul find it pays them better to know and speak the language of commerce--the language of ,cape ,town1 of ,kimberley1 of the future4 ,the reason is the same throughout4 ,whenever two tongues come to be spoken in the same area one of them is sure to be more useful in business than the other4 ,every ,french-,canadian who wishes to do things on a large scale is obliged to speak ,english4 ,so is the ,creole in ,louisiana2 so earlier were the ,knickerbocker ,dutch in ,new ,york4 ,once let ,english get in1 and it beats all competing languages fairly out of the field in a couple of generations4 ,like influences favour ,spanish in ,south ,america and elsewhere4 ,english has annexed most of ,north ,america1 ,australia1 ,south ,africa1 the ,pacific2 ,spanish has annexed ,south ,america1 ,central ,america1 the ,philippines1 ,cuba1 and a few other places4 ,for the most part these areas are less suited than the ,english-speaking districts for colonisation by ,north ,europeans2 but they absorb a large number of ,italians and other ,mediterranean races1 who all learn ,spanish in the second generation4 ,as to the other dominant languages1 the points in their favour are different4 ,conquest and administrative needs are spreading ,russian over the steppes of ,asia2 the ,arab merchant and the growth of ,mahommedanism are importing ,arabic far into the heart of ,africa2 the ,chinaman is carrying his own monosyllables with him to ,california1 ,australia1 ,singapore4 ,these tongues in future will divide the world between them4 ,the ,german who leaves ,germany becomes an ,anglo-,american4 ,the ,italian who leaves ,italy becomes a ,spanish-,american4 ,there is another and still more striking way of looking at the rapid increase of ,english4 ,no other language will carry you through so many ports in the world4 ,it suffices for ,london1 ,liverpool1 ,glasgow1 ,belfast1 ,southampton1 ,cardiff2 for ,new ,york1 ,boston1 ,montreal1 ,charleston1 ,new ,orleans1 ,san ,francisco2 for ,sydney1 ,melbourne1 ,auckland1 ,hong ,kong1 ,yokohama1 ,honolulu2 for ,calcutta1 ,bombay1 ,madras1 ,kurrachi1 ,singapore1 ,colombo1 ,cape ,town1 ,mauritius4 ,spanish with ,cadiz1 ,barcelona1 ,havana1 ,callao1 ,valparaiso1 cannot touch that record2 nor can ,french with ,marseilles1 ,bordeaux1 ,havre1 ,algiers1 ,antwerp1 ,tahiti4 ,the most commercially useful language in the world1 thus widely diffused in so many great mercantile and shipping centres1 is certain to win in the struggle for existence among the tongues of the future4 ,the old ,mediterranean civilisation teaches us a useful lesson in this respect4 ,two languages dominated the ,mediterranean basin4 ,the ,east spoke ,greek1 not because ,plato and schylus spoke ,greek1 but because ,greek was the tongue of the great commercial centres--of ,athens1 ,syracuse1 ,alexandria1 ,antioch1 ,byzantium4 ,the ,west spoke ,latin1 not because ,catullus and ,virgil spoke ,latin1 but because ,latin was the administrative tongue1 the tongue of ,rome1 of ,italy1 and later of ,gaul1 of ,spain1 of the great towns in ,dacia1 ,pannonia1 ,britain4 ,whoever wanted to do anything on the big scale then1 had to speak ,greek or ,latin2 so much so that the native languages of ,gaul and ,spain died utterly out1 and ,latin dialects are now the spoken tongue in all southern ,europe4 ,in our own time1 again1 educated ,hindoos from different parts of ,india have to use ,english as a means of intercommunication2 and native merchants must write their business correspondence with distant houses in ,english4 ,to put an extreme contrast3 in the last century ,french was spoken by far more people than ,english2 at the present day ,french is only just keeping up its numbers in ,france1 is losing in ,canada and the ,united ,states1 is not advancing to any extent in ,africa4 ,english is spoken by a hundred million people in ,europe and ,america2 is over-running ,africa2 has annexed ,australasia and the ,pacific ,isles2 has ousted1 or is ousting1 ,dutch at the ,cape1 ,french in ,louisiana1 even ,spanish itself in ,florida1 ,california1 ,new ,mexico4 ,in ,egyptian mud villages1 the aspiring ,copt1 who once learnt ,french1 now learns ,english4 ,in ,scandinavia1 our tongue gains ground daily4 ,everywhere in the world it takes the lead among the ,european languages1 and by the middle of the next century will no doubt be spoken over half the globe by a cosmopolitan mass of five hundred million people4 ,and all on purely ,darwinian principles6 ,it is the best adapted tongue1 and therefore it survives in the struggle for existence4 ,it is the easiest to learn1 at least orally4 ,it has got rid of the effete rubbish of genders2 simplified immensely its declensions and conjugations2 thrown overboard most of the nonsensical ballast we know as grammar4 ,it is only weighted now by its grotesque and ridiculous spelling--one of the absurdest among all the absurd ,english attempts at compromise4 ,the pressure of the newer speakers will compel it to make jetsam of that lumber also2 and then the tongue of ,shelley and ,newton will march onward unopposed to the conquest of humanity4 ,i pen these remarks1 ,i hope1 without prejudice4 ,patriotism is a vulgar vice of which ,i have never been guilty4 ,,ii4 ,,in ,,the ,,matter ,,of ,,aristocracy4 ,aristocracies1 as a rule1 all the world over1 consist1 and have always consisted1 of barbaric conquerors or their descendants1 who remain to the last1 on the average of instances1 at a lower grade of civilisation and morals than the democracy they live among4 ,i know this view is to some extent opposed to the common ideas of people at large 7and especially of that particular ,european people which dearly loves a lord7 as to the relative position of aristocracies and democracies in the sliding scale of human development4 ,there is a common though wholly unfounded belief knocking about the world1 that the aristocrat is better in intelligence1 in culture1 in arts1 in manners1 than the ordinary plebeian4 ,the fact is1 being1 like all barbarians1 a boastful creature1 he has gone on so long asserting his own profound superiority by birth to the world around him--a superiority as of fine porcelain to common clay--that the world around him has at last actually begun to accept him at his own valuation4 ,most ,english people in particular think that a lord is born a better judge of pictures and wines and books and deportment than the human average of us4 ,but history shows us the exact opposite4 ,it is a plain historical fact1 provable by simple enumeration1 that almost all the aristocracies the world has ever known have taken their rise in the conquest of civilised and cultivated races by barbaric invaders2 and that the barbaric invaders have seldom or never learned the practical arts and handicrafts which are the civilising element in the life of the conquered people around them4 ,to begin with the aristocracies best known to most of us1 the noble families of modern and medival ,europe sprang1 as a whole1 from the ,teutonic invasion of the ,roman ,empire4 ,in ,italy1 it was the ,lombards and the ,goths who formed the bulk of the great ruling families2 all the well-known aristocratic names of medival ,italy are without exception ,teutonic4 ,in ,gaul it was the rude ,frank who gave the aristocratic element to the mixed nationality1 while it was the civilised and cultivated ,romano-,celtic provincial who became1 by fate1 the mere roturier4 ,the great revolution1 it has been well said1 was1 ethnically speaking1 nothing more than the revolt of the ,celtic against the ,teutonic fraction2 and1 one might add also1 the revolt of the civilised ,romanised serf against the barbaric seigneur4 ,in ,spain1 the hidalgo is just the hi d'al ,go1 the son of the ,goth1 the descendant of those rude ,visigothic conquerors who broke down the old civilisation of ,iberian and ,romanised ,hispania4 ,and so on throughout4 ,all over ,europe1 if you care to look close1 you will find the aristocrat was the son of the intrusive barbarian2 the democrat was the son of the old civilised and educated autochthonous people4 ,it is just the same elsewhere1 wherever we turn4 ,take ,greece1 for example4 ,its most aristocratic state was undoubtedly ,sparta1 where a handful of essentially barbaric ,dorians held in check a much larger and ,helotised population of higher original civilisation4 ,take the ,east3 the ,persian was a wild mountain adventurer who imposed himself as an aristocrat upon the far more cultivated ,babylonian1 ,assyrian1 and ,egyptian4 ,the same sort of thing had happened earlier in time in ,babylonia and ,assyria themselves1 where barbaric conquerors had similarly imposed themselves upon the first known historical civilisations4 ,take ,india under the ,moguls1 once more2 the aristocracy of the time consisted of the rude ,mahommedan ,tartar1 who lorded it over the ancient enchorial culture of ,rajpoot and ,brahmin4 ,take ,china3 the same thing over again--a ,tartar horde imposing its savage rule over the most ancient civilised people of ,asia4 ,take ,england3 its aristocracy at different times has consisted of the various barbaric invaders1 first the ,anglo-,saxon 7if ,i must use that hateful and misleading word7--a pirate from ,sleswick2 then the ,dane1 another pirate from ,denmark direct2 then the ,norman1 a yet younger ,danish pirate1 with a thin veneer of early ,french culture1 who came over from ,normandy to better himself after just two generations of ,christian apprenticeship4 ,go where you will1 it matters not where you look2 from the ,aztec in ,mexico to the ,turk at ,constantinople or the ,arab in ,north ,africa1 the aristocrat belongs invariably to a lower race than the civilised people whom he has conquered and subjugated4 ,that may be true1 perhaps1 you object1 as to the remote historical origin of aristocracies2 but surely the aristocrat of later generations has acquired all the science1 all the art1 all the polish of the people he lives amongst4 ,he is the flower of their civilisation4 ,don't you believe it6 ,there isn't a word of truth in it4 ,from first to last the aristocrat remains1 what ,matthew ,arnold so justly called him1 a barbarian4 ,i often wonder1 indeed1 whether ,arnold himself really recognised the literal and actual truth of his own brilliant generalisation4 ,for the aristocratic ideas and the aristocratic pursuits remain to the very end essentially barbaric4 ,the gentleman never soils his high-born hands with dirty work2 in other words1 he holds himself severely aloof from the trades and handicrafts which constitute civilisation4 ,the arts that train and educate hand1 eye1 and brain he ignorantly despises4 ,in the early middle ages he did not even condescend to read and write1 those inferior accomplishments being badges of serfdom4 ,if you look close at the occupations of a gentleman in the present day1 you will find they are all of purely barbaric character4 ,they descend to us direct from the semi-savage invaders who overthrew the structure of the ,roman empire1 and replaced its civilised organisation by the military and barbaric system of feudalism4 ,the gentleman is above all things a fighter1 a hunter1 a fisher--he preserves the three simplest and commonest barbaric functions4 ,he is not a practiser of any civilised or civilising art--a craftsman1 a maker1 a worker in metal1 in stone1 in textile fabrics1 in pottery4 ,these are the things that constitute civilisation2 but the aristocrat does none of them2 in the famous words of one who now loves to mix with ,english gentlemen1 he toils not1 neither does he spin4 ,the things he may do are1 to fight by sea and land1 like his ancestor the ,goth and his ancestor the ,viking2 to slay pheasant and partridge1 like his predatory forefathers2 to fish for salmon in the ,highlands2 to hunt the fox1 to sail the yacht1 to scour the earth in search of great game--lions1 elephants1 buffalo4 ,his one task is to kill--either his kind or his quarry4 ,observe1 too1 the essentially barbaric nature of the gentleman's home--his trappings1 his distinctive marks1 his surroundings1 his titles4 ,he lives by choice in the wildest country1 like his skin-clad ancestors1 demanding only that there be game and foxes and fish for his delectation4 ,he loves the moors1 the wolds1 the fens1 the braes1 the ,highlands1 not as the painter1 the naturalist1 or the searcher after beauty of scenery loves them--for the sake of their wild life1 their heather and bracken1 their fresh keen air1 their boundless horizon--but for the sake of the thoroughly barbarous existence he and his dogs and his gillies can lead in them4 ,the fact is1 neither he nor his ancestors have ever been really civilised4 ,barbarians in the midst of an industrial community1 they have lived their own life of slaying and playing1 untouched by the culture of the world below them4 ,knights in the middle ages1 squires in the eighteenth century1 they have never received a tincture of the civilising arts and crafts and industries2 they have fought and fished and hunted in uninterrupted succession since the days when wild in woods the noble savage ran1 to the days when they pay extravagant rents for ,scottish grouse moors4 ,their very titles are barbaric and military--knight and earl and marquis and duke1 early crystallised names for leaders in war or protectors of the frontier4 ,their crests and coats of arms are but the totems of their savage predecessors1 afterwards utilised by medival blacksmiths as distinguishing marks for the summit of a helmet4 ,they decorate their halls with savage trophies of the chase1 like the ,zulu or the ,red ,indian2 they hang up captured arms and looted ,chinese jars from the ,summer ,palace in their semi-civilised drawing-rooms4 ,they love to be surrounded by grooms and gamekeepers and other barbaric retainers2 they pass their lives in the midst of serfs2 their views about the position and rights of women--especially the women of the lower orders--are frankly ,african4 ,they share the sentiments of ,achilles as to the individuality of ,chryseis and ,briseis4 ,such is the actual aristocrat1 as we now behold him4 ,thus1 living his own barbarous life in the midst of a civilised community of workers and artists and thinkers and craftsmen1 with whom he seldom mingles1 and with whom he has nothing in common1 this chartered relic of worse days preserves from first to last many painful traits of the low moral and social ideas of his ancestors1 from which he has never varied4 ,he represents most of all1 in the modern world1 the surviving savage4 ,his love of gewgaws1 of titles1 of uniform1 of dress1 of feathers1 of decorations1 of ,highland kilts1 and stars and garters1 is but one external symbol of his lower grade of mental and moral status4 ,all over ,europe1 the truly civilised classes have gone on progressing by the practice of peaceful arts from generation to generation2 but the aristocrat has stood still at the same half-savage level1 a hunter and fighter1 an orgiastic roysterer1 a killer of wild boars and wearer of absurd medival costumes1 too childish for the civilised and cultivated commoner4 ,government by aristocrats is thus government by the mentally and morally inferior4 ,and yet--a ,bill for giving at last some scant measure of self-government to persecuted ,ireland has to run the gauntlet1 in our nineteenth-century ,england1 of an irresponsible ,house of hereditary barbarians6 ,,iii4 ,,science ,,in ,,education4 ,i mean what ,i say3 science in education1 not education in science4 ,it is the last of these that all the scientific men of ,england have so long been fighting for4 ,and a very good thing it is in its way1 and ,i hope they may get as much as they want of it4 ,but compared to the importance of science in education1 education in science is a matter of very small national moment4 ,the difference between the two is by no means a case of tweedledum and tweedledee4 ,education in science means the systematic teaching of science so as to train up boys to be scientific men4 ,now scientific men are exceedingly useful members of a community2 and so are engineers1 and bakers1 and blacksmiths1 and artists1 and chimney-sweeps4 ,but we can't all be bakers1 and we can't all be painters in water-colours4 ,there is a dim ,west ,country legend to the effect that the inhabitants of the ,scilly ,isles eke out a precarious livelihood by taking in one another's washing4 ,as a matter of practical political economy1 such a source of income is worse than precarious--it's frankly impossible4 ,it takes all sorts to make a world4 ,a community entirely composed of scientific men would fail to feed itself1 clothe itself1 house itself1 and keep itself supplied with amusing light literature4 ,in one word1 education in science produces specialists2 and specialists1 though most useful and valuable persons in their proper place1 are no more the staple of a civilised community than engine-drivers or ballet-dancers4 ,what the world at large really needs1 and will one day get1 is not this1 but due recognition of the true value of science in education4 ,we don't all want to be made into first-class anatomists like ,owen1 still less into first-class practical surgeons1 like ,sir ,henry ,thompson4 ,but what we do all want is a competent general knowledge 7amongst other things7 of anatomy at large1 and especially of human anatomy2 of physiology at large1 and especially of human physiology4 ,we don't all want to be analytical chemists3 but what we do all want is to know as much about oxygen and carbon as will enable us to understand the commonest phenomena of combustion1 of chemical combination1 of animal or vegetable life4 ,we don't all want to be zoologists1 and botanists of the type who put their names after critical species3 but what we do all want to know is as much about plants and animals as will enable us to walk through life intelligently1 and to understand the meaning of the things that surround us4 ,we want1 in one word1 a general acquaintance with the results rather than with the methods of science4 ,in short1 says the specialist1 with his familiar sneer1 you want a smattering4 ,well1 yes1 dear ,sir ,smelfungus1 if it gives you pleasure to put it so--just that2 a smattering1 an all-round smattering4 ,but remember that in this matter the man of science is always influenced by ideas derived from his own pursuits as specialist4 ,he is for ever thinking what sort of education will produce more specialists in future2 and as a rule he is thinking what sort of education will produce men capable in future of advancing science4 ,now to advance science1 to discover new snails1 or invent new ethyl compounds1 is not and cannot be the main object of the mass of humanity4 ,what the mass wants is just unspecialised knowledge--the kind of knowledge that enables men to get comfortably and creditably and profitably through life1 to meet emergencies as they rise1 to know their way through the world1 to use their faculties in all circumstances to the best advantage4 ,and for this purpose what is wanted is1 not the methods1 but the results of science4 ,one science1 and one only1 is rationally taught in our schools at present4 ,i mean geography4 ,and the example of geography is so eminently useful for illustrating the difference ,i am trying to point out1 that ,i will venture to dwell upon it for a moment in passing4 ,it is good for us all to know that the world is round1 without its being necessary for every one of us to follow in detail the intricate reasoning by which that result has been arrived at4 ,it is good for us all to know the position of ,new ,york and ,rio and ,calcutta on the map1 without its being necessary for us to understand1 far less to work out for ourselves1 the observations and calculations which fixed their latitude and longitude4 ,knowledge of the map is a good thing in itself1 though it is a very different thing indeed from the technical knowledge which enables a man to make a chart of an unknown region1 or to explore and survey it4 ,furthermore1 it is a form of knowledge far more generally useful4 ,a fair acquaintance with the results embodied in the atlas1 in the gazetteer1 in ,baedeker1 and in ,bradshaw1 is much oftener useful to us on our way through the world than a special acquaintance with the methods of map-making4 ,it would be absurd to say that because a man is not going to be a ,stanley or a ,nansen1 therefore it is no good for him to learn geography4 ,it would be absurd to say that unless he learned geography in accordance with its methods instead of its results1 he could have but a smattering1 and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing4 ,a little knowledge of the position of ,new ,york is indeed a dangerous thing1 if a man uses it to navigate a ,cunard vessel across the ,atlantic4 ,but the absence of the smattering is a much more dangerous and fatal thing if the man wishes to do business with the ,argentine and the ,transvaal1 or to enter into practical relations of any sort with anybody outside his own parish4 ,the results of geography are useful and valuable in themselves1 quite apart from the methods employed in obtaining them4 ,it is just the same with all the other sciences4 ,there is nothing occult or mysterious about them4 ,no just cause or impediment exists why we should insist on being ignorant of the orbits of the planets because we cannot ourselves make the calculations for determining them2 no reason why we should insist on being ignorant of the classification of plants and animals because we don't feel able ourselves to embark on anatomical researches which would justify us in coming to original conclusions about them4 ,i know the mass of scientific opinion has always gone the other way2 but then scientific opinion means only the opinion of men of science1 who are themselves specialists1 and who think most of the education needed to make men specialists1 not of the education needed to fit them for the general exigencies and emergencies of life4 ,we don't want authorities on the ,cucurbitace1 but well-informed citizens4 ,professor ,huxley is not our best guide in these matters1 but ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer1 who long ago1 in his book on ,education1 sketched out a radical programme of instruction in that knowledge which is of most worth1 such as no country1 no college1 no school in ,europe has ever yet been bold enough to put into practice4 ,what common sense really demands1 then1 is education in the main results of all the sciences--a knowledge of what is known1 not necessarily a knowledge of each successive step by which men came to know it4 ,at present1 of course1 in all our schools in ,england there is no systematic teaching of knowledge at all2 what replaces it is a teaching of the facts of language1 and for the most part of useless facts1 or even of exploded fictions4 ,our public schools1 especially 7by which phrase we never mean real public schools like the board schools at all1 but merely schools for the upper and the middle classes7 are in their existing stage primarily great gymnasiums--very good things1 too1 in their way1 against which ,i have not a word of blame2 and1 secondarily1 places for imparting a sham and imperfect knowledge of some few philological facts about two extinct languages4 ,pupils get a smattering of ,homer and ,cicero4 ,that is literally all the equipment for life that the cleverest and most industrious boys can ever take away from them4 ,the sillier or idler don't take away even that4 ,as to the mental training argument1 so often trotted out1 it is childish enough not to be worth answering4 ,which is most practically useful to us in life--knowledge of ,latin grammar or knowledge of ourselves and the world we live in1 physical1 social1 moral8 ,that is the question4 ,the truth is1 schoolmastering in ,britain has become a vast vested interest in the hands of men who have nothing to teach us4 ,they try to bolster up their vicious system by such artificial arguments as the mental training fallacy4 ,forced to admit the utter uselessness of the pretended knowledge they impart1 they fall back upon the plea of its supposed occult value as intellectual discipline4 ,they say in effect3--,this sawdust we offer you contains no food1 we know3 but then see how it strengthens the jaws to chew it6 ,besides1 look at our results6 ,the typical ,john ,bull6 pig-headed1 ignorant1 brutal4 ,are we really such immense successes ourselves that we must needs perpetuate the mould that warped us8 ,the one fatal charge brought against the public school system is that after all1 it turns out ,english gentlemen6 ,,iv4 ,,the ,,theory ,,of ,,scapegoats4 ,alas1 how easily things go wrong6 says ,dr4 ,george ,mac,donald4 ,and all the world over1 when things do go wrong1 the natural and instinctive desire of the human animal is--to find a scapegoat4 ,when the great ,french nation in the lump embarks its capital in a hopeless scheme for cutting a canal through the ,isthmus of ,panama1 and then finds out too late that ,nature has imposed insuperable barriers to its completion on the projected scale--what does the great ,french nation do1 in its collective wisdom1 but turn round at once to rend the directors8 ,it cries1 ,a ,mazas6 just as in '#ga it cried ,bazaine la lanterne6 ,i don't mean to say the directors don't deserve all they have got or ever will get1 and perhaps more also2 ,i don't mean to deny corruption extraordinary in many high places2 as a rule the worst that anybody alleges about anything is only a part of what might easily be alleged if we were all in the secret4 ,which of us1 indeed1 would 'scape whipping8 ,but what ,i do mean is1 that we should never have heard of ,reinach or ,herz1 of the corruption and peculation1 at all if things had gone well4 ,it is the crash that brought them out4 ,the nation wants a scapegoat4 ,ain't nobody to be whopped for this 'ere8 asked ,mr4 ,sam ,weller on a critical occasion4 ,the question embodies the universal impulse of humanity4 ,tracing the feeling back to its origin1 it seems due to this3 minds of the lower order can never see anything go wrong without experiencing a certain sense of resentment2 and resentment1 by its very nature1 desires to vent itself upon some living and sentient creature1 by preference a fellow human being4 ,when the child1 running too fast1 falls and hurts itself1 it gets instantly angry4 ,naughty ground to hurt baby6 says the nurse3 ,baby hit it and hurt it4 ,and baby promptly hits it back1 with vicious little fist1 feeling every desire to revenge itself4 ,by-and-by1 when baby grows older and learns that the ground can't feel to speak of1 he wants to put the blame upon somebody else1 in order to have an object to expend his rage upon4 ,you pushed me down6 he says to his playmate1 and straightway proceeds to punch his playmate's head for it--not because he really believes the playmate did it1 but because he feels he must have some outlet for his resentment4 ,when once resentment is roused1 it will expend its force on anything that turns up handy1 as the man who has quarrelled with his wife about a question of a bonnet1 will kick his dog for trying to follow him to the club as he leaves her4 ,the mob1 enraged at the death of ,csar1 meets ,cinna the poet in the streets of ,rome4 ,your name1 sir8 inquires the ,third ,citizen4 ,truly1 my name is ,cinna1 says the unsuspecting author4 ,tear him to pieces6 cries the mob2 he's a conspirator6 ,i am ,cinna the poet1 pleads the unhappy man2 ,i am not ,cinna the conspirator6 ,but the mob does not heed such delicate distinctions at such a moment4 ,tear him for his bad verses6 it cries impartially4 ,tear him for his bad verses6 ,whatever sort of misfortune falls upon persons of the lower order of intelligence is always met in the same spirit4 ,especially is this the case with the deaths of relatives4 ,fools who have lost a friend invariably blame somebody for his fatal illness4 ,to hear many people talk1 you would suppose they were unaware of the familiar proposition that all men are mortal 7including women72 you might imagine they thought an ordinary human constitution was calculated to survive nine hundred and ninety-nine years unless some evil-disposed person or persons took the trouble beforehand to waylay and destroy it4 ,my poor father was eighty-seven when he died2 and he would have been alive still if it weren't for that nasty ,mrs4 ,jones3 she put him into a pair of damp sheets4 ,or1 ,my husband would never have caught the cold that killed him1 if that horrid man ,brown hadn't kept him waiting so long in the carriage at the street corner4 ,the doctor has to bear the brunt of most such complaints2 indeed1 it is calculated by an eminent statistician 7who desires his name to remain unpublished7 that eighty-three per cent4 of the deaths in ,great ,britain might easily have been averted if the patient had only been treated in various distinct ways by all the members of his family1 and if that foolish ,dr4 ,squills hadn't so grossly mistaken and mistreated his malady4 ,the fact is1 the death is regarded as a misfortune1 and somebody must be blamed for it4 ,heaven has provided scapegoats4 ,the doctor and the hostile female members of the family are always there--laid on1 as it were1 for the express purpose4 ,with us in modern ,europe1 resentment in such cases seldom goes further than vague verbal outbursts of temper4 ,we accuse ,mrs4 ,jones of misdemeanours with damp sheets2 but we don't get so far as to accuse her of tricks with strychnine4 ,in the ,middle ,ages1 however1 the pursuit of the scapegoat ran a vast deal further4 ,when any great one died--a ,black ,prince or a ,dauphin--it was always assumed on all hands that he must have been poisoned4 ,true1 poisoning may then have been a trifle more frequent2 certainly the means of detecting it were far less advanced than in the days of ,tidy and ,lauder ,brunton4 ,still1 people must often have died natural deaths even in the ,middle ,ages--though nobody believed it4 ,all the world began to speculate what ,jane ,shore could have poisoned them4 ,a little earlier1 again1 it was not the poisoner that was looked for1 but his predecessor1 the sorcerer4 ,whoever fell ill1 somebody had bewitched him4 ,were the cattle diseased8 ,then search for the evil eye4 ,did the cows yield no milk8 ,some neighbour1 doubtless1 knew the reason only too well1 and could be forced to confess it by liberal use of the thumb-screw and the ducking-stool4 ,no misfortune was regarded as due to natural causes2 for in their philosophy there were no such things as natural causes at all2 whatever ill-luck came1 somebody had contrived it2 so you had always your scapegoat ready to hand to punish4 ,the ,athenians1 indeed1 kept a small collection of public scapegoats always in stock1 waiting to be sacrificed at a moment's notice4 ,more even than that4 ,go one step further back1 and you will find that man in his early stages has no conception of such a thing as natural death in any form4 ,he doesn't really know that the human organism is wound up like a clock to run at best for so many years1 or months1 or hours1 and that even if nothing unexpected happens to cut short its course prematurely1 it can only run out its allotted period4 ,within his own experience1 almost all the deaths that occur are violent deaths1 and have been brought about by human agency or by the attacks of wild beasts4 ,there you have a cause with whose action and operation the savage is personally familiar2 and it is the only one he believes in4 ,even old age is in his eyes no direct cause of death2 for when his relations grow old1 he considerately clubs them1 to put them out of their misery4 ,when1 therefore1 he sees his neighbour struck down before his face by some invisible power1 and writhing with pain as though unseen snakes and tigers were rending him1 what should he naturally conclude save that demon or witch or wizard is at work8 and if he cares about the matter at all1 what should he do save endeavour to find the culprit out and inflict condign punishment8 ,in savage states1 whenever anything untoward happens to the king or chief1 it is the business of the witch-finder to disclose the wrong-doer2 and sooner or later1 you may be sure1 somebody gets whopped for it4 ,whopping in ,dahomey means wholesale decapitation4 ,now1 is it not a direct survival from this primitive state of mind that entails upon us all the desire to find a scapegoat8 ,our ancestors really believed there was always somebody to blame--man1 witch1 or spirit--if only you could find him2 and though we ourselves have mostly got beyond that stage1 yet the habit it engendered in our race remains ingrained in the nervous system1 so that none but a few of the naturally highest and most civilised dispositions have really outgrown it4 ,most people still think there is somebody to blame for every human misfortune4 ,who fills the butcher's shops with large blue flies8 asked the poet of the ,regency4 ,he set it down to the ,corsican ogre4 ,for the ,tory ,englishmen of the present day it is ,mr4 ,gladstone who is most often and most popularly envisaged as the author of all evil4 ,for the ,pope1 it is the ,freemasons4 ,there are just a few men here and there in the world who can see that when misfortunes come1 circumstances1 or nature1 or 7hardest of all7 we ourselves have brought them4 ,the common human instinct is still to get into a rage1 and look round to discover whether there's any other fellow standing about unobserved1 whose head we can safely undertake to punch for it4 ,it's all the fault of those confounded paid agitators4 ,v4 ,,american ,,duchesses4 ,every ,american woman is by birth a duchess4 ,there1 you see1 ,i have taken you in4 ,when you saw the heading1 ,american ,duchesses1 you thought ,i was going to purvey some piquant scandal about high-placed ladies2 and you straightway began to read my essay4 ,that shows ,i rightly interpreted your human nature4 ,there's a deal of human nature flying about unrecognised4 ,yet when ,i said duchesses1 ,i actually meant it4 ,for the ,american woman is the only real aristocrat now living in ,america4 ,these remarks are forced upon me by a brilliant afternoon on the ,promenade des ,anglais4 ,all ,nice is there1 in its cosmopolitan butterfly variety1 flaunting itself in the sun in the very ugly dresses now in fashion4 ,i don't know why1 but the mode of the moment consists in making everything as exaggerated as possible1 and sedulously hiding the natural contours of the human figure4 ,but let that pass2 the day is too fine for a man to be critical4 ,the band is playing ,mascagni's last in the ,jardin ,public2 the carriages are drawn up beside the palms and judas-trees that fringe the ,paillon2 the sous-officiers are strolling along the wall with their red caps stuck jauntily just a trifle on one side1 as though to mow down nursemaids were the one legitimate occupation of the brav' militaire4 ,and among them all1 proud1 tall1 disdainful1 glide the ,american duchesses1 cold1 critical1 high-toned1 yet ready to strike up1 should opportunity serve1 appropriate acquaintance with their natural equals1 the dukes of ,europe4 ,and the ,american dukes8--,there aren't any4 ,but these ladies' husbands and fathers and brothers8--,oh1 they're business men1 working hard for the duchesses in ,wall ,street1 or on ',change in ,chicago4 ,and that's why ,i say quite seriously the ,american woman is the only real aristocrat now living in ,america4 ,everybody who has seen much of ,americans must have noticed for himself how really superior ,american women are1 on the average1 to the men of their kind4 ,i don't mean merely that they are better dressed1 and better groomed1 and better got up1 and better mannered than their brothers4 ,i mean that they have a real superiority in the things worth having--the things that are more excellent--in education1 culture1 knowledge1 taste1 good feeling4 ,and the reason is not far to seek4 ,they represent the only leisured class in ,america4 ,they are the one set of people from ,maine to ,california who have time to read1 to think1 to travel1 to look at good pictures1 to hear good music1 to mix with society that can improve and elevate them4 ,they have read ,daudet2 they have seen the ,vatican4 ,the women thus form a natural aristocracy--the only aristocracy the country possesses4 ,i am aware that in saying this ,i take my life in my hands4 ,i shall be prepared to defend myself from the infuriated ,westerner with the usual argument1 which ,i shall carry about loaded in all its chambers in my right-hand pocket4 ,i am also aware that less infuriated ,easterners1 choosing their own more familiar weapon1 will inundate my leisure with sardonic inquiries whether ,i don't consider ,oliver ,wendell ,holmes or ,charles ,eliot ,norton 7thus named in full7 the equal in culture of the average ,american woman4 ,well1 ,i frankly admit these cases and thousands like them2 indeed ,i have had the good fortune to number among my personal acquaintances many ,american gentlemen whose chivalrous breeding would have been conspicuous 7if you will believe it7 even at ,marlborough ,house4 ,i will also allow that in ,new ,york1 in ,boston1 and less abundantly in other big towns of ,america1 men of leisure1 men of culture1 and men of thought are to be found1 as wide-minded and as gentle-natured as this race of ours makes them4 ,but that doesn't alter the general fact that1 taking them in the lump1 ,american men stand a step or two lower in the scale of humanity than ,american women4 ,one need hardly ask why4 ,it is because the men are almost all immersed and absorbed in business1 while the women are fine ladies who stop at home1 and read1 and see1 and interest themselves widely in numberless directions4 ,the consequence is that nowhere1 as a rule1 does the gulf between the sexes yawn so wide as in ,america4 ,one can often observe it in the brothers and sisters of the same family4 ,and it runs in the opposite direction from the gulf in ,europe4 ,with us1 as a rule1 the men are better educated1 and more likely to have read and seen and thought widely1 than the women4 ,in ,america1 the men are generally so steeped in affairs as to be materialised and encysted2 they take for the most part a hard-headed1 solid-silver view of everything1 and are but little influenced by abstract conceptions4 ,their horizon is bounded by the rim of the dollar4 ,nay1 owing to the eager desire to get a good start by beginning life early1 their education itself is generally cut short at a younger age than their sisters'2 so that1 even at the outset1 the girls have often a decided superiority in knowledge and culture4 ,amanda reads ,paul ,bourget and ,john ,oliver ,hobbes2 she has some slight tincture of ,latin1 ,greek1 and ,german2 while ,cyrus knows nothing but ,english and arithmetic1 the quotations for prime pork and the state of the market for ,futures4 ,add to this that the women are more sensitive1 more delicate1 more naturally refined1 as well as unspoilt by the trading spirit1 and you get the real reasons for the marked and1 in some ways1 unusual superiority of the ,american woman4 ,that1 ,i think1 in large part explains the fascination which ,american women undoubtedly exercise over a considerable class of ,european men4 ,in the ,european man the ,american woman often recognises for the first time the male of her species4 ,unaccustomed at home to as general a level of culture and feeling as she finds among the educated gentlemen of ,europe1 she likes their society and makes her preference felt by them4 ,now man is a vain animal4 ,you are a man yourself1 and must recognise at once the truth of the proposition4 ,as soon as he sees a woman likes him1 he instantly returns the compliment with interest4 ,in point of fact1 he usually falls in love with her4 ,of course ,i admit the large number of concomitant circumstances which disturb the problem2 ,i admit on the one hand the tempting shekels of the ,californian heiress1 and on the other hand the glamour and halo that still surround the ,british coronet4 ,nevertheless1 after making all deductions for these disturbing factors1 ,i submit there remains a residual phenomenon thus best interpreted4 ,if anybody denies it1 ,i would ask him one question--how does it come that so many ,englishmen1 ,frenchmen1 and ,italians marry ,american women1 while so few ,englishwomen1 ,french women1 or ,italian women marry ,american men8 ,surely the ,american men have also the shekels2 surely it is something even in ,oregon or ,montana to have inspired an honourable passion in a ,lady ,elizabeth or a dowager countess4 ,i think the true explanation is that our men are attracted by ,american women1 but our women are not equally attracted by ,american men1 and that the quality of the articles has something to do with it4 ,the ,american duchess1 ,i take it1 comes over to ,europe1 and desires incontinently to drag the ,european duke at the wheels of her chariot4 ,and the ,european duke is fascinated in turn1 partly by this very fact1 partly by the undeniable freshness1 brightness1 and delicate culture of the ,american woman4 ,for there is no burking the truth that in many respects the ,american woman carries about her a peculiar charm ungranted as yet to her ,european sisters4 ,it is the charm of freedom1 of ease1 of a certain external and skin-deep emancipation--an emancipation which goes but a little way down1 yet adds a quaint and piquant grace of manner4 ,what she conspicuously lacks1 on the other hand1 is essential femininity2 by which ,i don't mean womanliness--of that she has enough and to spare--but the wholesome physical and instinctive qualities which go to make up a sound and well-equipped wife and mother4 ,the lack of these underlying muliebral qualities more than counterbalances to not a few ,europeans the undoubted vivacity1 originality1 and freshness of the ,american woman4 ,she is a dainty bit of porcelain1 unsuited for use2 a delicate exotic blossom1 for drawing-room decoration1 where many would prefer robust fruit-bearing faculties4 ,i dropped into the ,opera ,house here at ,nice the other night1 and found they were playing ,carmen--which is always interesting4 ,well1 you may perhaps remember that when that creature of passion1 the gipsy heroine1 wishes to gain or retain a man's affections1 she throws a rose at him1 and then he cannot resist her4 ,that is ,mrime's symbolism4 ,art is full of these sacrifices of realism to reticence4 ,outside the opera1 it is not with roses that women enslave us4 ,but the ,american duchess relies entirely upon the use of the rose2 and that is just where she fails to interest so many of us in ,europe4 ,and now ,i think it's almost time for me to go and hunt up the material arguments for that rusty six-shooter4 ,,vi4 ,,is ,,england ,,played ,,out8 ,britain is now the centre of civilisation4 ,will it always be so8 ,is our commercial supremacy decaying or not8 ,have we begun to reach the period of inevitable decline8 ,or is decline indeed inevitable at all8 ,might a nation go on being great for ever8 ,if so1 are we that nation8 ,if not1 have we yet arrived at the moment when retrogression becomes a foregone conclusion8 ,these are momentous questions4 ,dare ,i try1 under the mimosas on the terrace1 to resolve them8 ,most people have talked of late as though the palmy days of ,england were fairly over4 ,the down grade lies now before us4 ,but1 then1 so far as ,i can judge1 most people have talked so ever since the morning when ,hengist and ,horsa1 ,limited1 landed from their three keels in the ,isle of ,thanet4 ,gildas is the oldest historian of these islands1 and his work consists entirely of a good old ,tory lament in the ,ashmead-,bartlett strain upon the degeneracy of the times and the proximate ruin of the ,british people4 ,gildas wrote some fourteen hundred years ago or thereabouts--and the country is not yet quite visibly ruined4 ,on the contrary1 it seems to the impartial eye a more eligible place of residence to-day than in the stirring times of the ,saxon invasion4 ,hence1 for the last two or three centuries1 ,i have learned to discount these recurrent ,jeremiads of ,toryism1 and to judge the question of our decadence or progress by a more rational standard4 ,there is only one such rational standard2 and that is1 to discover the causes and conditions of our commercial prosperity1 and then to inquire whether those causes and conditions are being largely altered or modified by the evolution of new phases4 ,if they are1 ,england must begin to decline2 if they are not1 her day is not yet come4 ,home ,rule she will survive2 even the ,eight ,hours bogey1 we may presume1 will not finally dispose of her4 ,now1 the centre of civilisation is not a fixed point4 ,it has varied from time to time1 and may yet vary4 ,in the very earliest historical period1 there was hardly such a thing as a centre of civilisation at all4 ,there were civilisations in ,egypt1 ,assyria1 ,babylonia1 ,etruria2 discrete civilisations of the river valleys1 mostly1 which scarcely came into contact with one another in their first beginnings2 any more than our own came into contact once with the civilisations of ,china1 of ,japan1 of ,peru1 of ,mexico4 ,as yet there was no world-commerce1 no mutual communication of empire with empire4 ,it was in the gean and the eastern basin of the ,mediterranean that navigation first reached the point where great commercial ports and free intercourse became possible4 ,the ,phoenicians1 and later the ,greeks1 were the pioneers of the new era4 ,tyre1 ,athens1 ,miletus1 ,rhodes1 occupied the centre of the nascent world1 and bound together ,assyria1 ,babylonia1 ,egypt1 ,asia ,minor1 ,greece1 ,sicily1 and ,italy in one mercantile system4 ,a little later1 ,hellas itself enlarged1 so as to include ,syracuse1 ,byzantium1 ,alexandria1 ,cyrene1 ,cumae1 ,neapolis1 ,massilia4 ,the inland sea became a ,greek lake4 ,but as navigation thus slowly widened to the western ,mediterranean basin1 the centre of commerce had to shift perforce from ,hellas to the mid-point of the new area4 ,two powerful trading towns occupied such a mid-point in the ,mediterranean--,rome and ,carthage2 and they were driven to fight out the supremacy of the world 7the world as it then existed7 between them4 ,with the ,roman ,empire1 the circle extended so as to take in the ,atlantic coasts1 ,gaul1 ,spain1 and ,britain1 which then1 however1 lay not at the centre but on the circumference of civilisation4 ,during the ,middle ,ages1 when navigation began to embrace the great open sea as well as the ,mediterranean1 a double centre sprang up3 the ,italian ,republics1 ,venice1 ,florence1 ,genoa1 ,pisa1 were still the chief carriers2 but the towns of ,flanders1 ,bruges1 ,ghent1 and ,antwerp began to compete with them1 and the ,atlantic states1 ,france1 ,england1 the ,low ,countries1 rose into importance4 ,by and by1 as time goes on1 the discoveries of ,columbus and of ,vasco di ,gama open out new tracks4 ,suddenly commerce is revolutionised4 ,france1 ,england1 ,spain1 become nearer to ,america and ,india than ,italy2 so ,italy declines2 while the ,atlantic states usurp the first place as the centres of civilisation4 ,our own age brings fresh seas into the circle once more4 ,it is no longer the ,atlantic1 the ,mediterranean1 or the ,indian ,ocean that alone count2 the ,pacific also begins to be considered4 ,china1 ,japan1 the ,cape2 ,chili1 ,peru1 the ,argentine2 ,california1 ,british ,columbia1 ,australia1 ,new ,zealand2 all of them are parts of the system of to-day2 civilisation is world-wide4 ,has this change of area altered the central position of ,england8 ,not at all1 save to strengthen it4 ,if you look at the hemisphere of greatest land1 you will see that ,england occupies its exact middle4 ,insular herself1 and therefore all made up of ports1 she is nearer all ports in the world than any other country is or ever can be4 ,i don't say that this insures for her perpetual dominion1 such as ,virgil prophesied for the ,roman ,empire2 but ,i do say it makes her a hard country to beat in commercial competition4 ,it accounts for ,liverpool1 ,london1 ,glasgow1 ,newcastle2 it even accounts in a way for ,manchester1 ,birmingham1 ,leeds1 and ,sheffield4 ,england now stands at the mathematical centre of the practical world1 and unless some ,big ,thing occurs to displace her1 she must continue to stand there4 ,it takes a great deal to upset the balance of an entire planet4 ,is anything now displacing her8 ,well1 there is the fact that railways are making land-carriage to-day more important relatively to water-carriage than at any previous period4 ,that may1 perhaps1 in time shift the centre of the world from an island like ,england to the middle of a great land area1 like ,chicago or ,moscow4 ,and1 no doubt1 if ever the centre shifts at all1 it will shift towards ,western ,america1 or rather the prairie region4 ,but1 just at present1 what are the greatest commercial towns of the world8 ,all ports to a man4 ,and the day when it will be otherwise1 if ever1 seems still far distant4 ,look at the newest countries4 ,what are their great focal points8 ,every one of them ports4 ,melbourne and ,sydney2 ,rio1 ,buenos ,ayres1 and ,valparaiso2 ,cape ,town1 ,san ,francisco1 ,bombay1 ,calcutta1 ,yokohama4 ,chicago itself1 the most vital and the quickest grower among modern towns1 owes half its importance to the fact that there water-carriage down the ,great ,lakes begins2 though it owes the other half1 ,i admit1 to the converse fact that all the great trans-continental railways have to bend south at that point to avoid ,lake ,michigan4 ,still1 on the whole1 ,i think1 as long as conditions remain what they are1 the commercial supremacy of ,england is in no immediate danger4 ,it is these great permanent geographical factors that make or mar a country1 not ,eight ,hours ,bills or petty social reconstructions4 ,said the ,lord ,mayor of ,london to petulant ,king ,james1 when he proposed to remove the ,court to ,oxford1 ,may it please your ,majesty not to take away the ,thames also4 ,but our competitors8 ,we are being driven out of our markets4 ,oh1 yes1 if that's all you mean1 ,i don't suppose we shall always be able in everything to keep up our exclusive position4 ,our neighbours1 who 7bar the advantage of insularity1 which means a coast and a port always close at hand7 seem nearly as well situated as we are for access to the world-markets1 are beginning to wake up and take a slice of the cake from us4 ,germany is manufacturing2 ,belgium is smelting2 ,antwerp is exporting2 ,america is occupying her own markets4 ,but that's a very different thing indeed from national decadence4 ,we may have to compete a little harder with our rivals1 that's all4 ,the ,boom may be over2 but the ,thames remains3 the geographical facts are still unaltered4 ,and notice that all the time while there's been this vague talk about bad times--income-tax has been steadily increasing1 ,london has been steadily growing1 every outer and visible sign of commercial prosperity has been steadily spreading4 ,have our watering-places shrunk8 ,have our buildings been getting smaller and less luxurious8 ,if ,antwerp has grown1 how about ,hull and ,cardiff8 ,well1 perhaps the past is all right2 but consider the future6 ,eight hours are going to drive capital out of the country6 ,rubbish6 ,i'm not a political economist1 thank ,god2 ,i never sank quite so low as that4 ,and ,i'm not speaking for or against ,eight ,hours3 ,i'm only discounting some verbose nonsense4 ,but ,i know enough to see that the capital of a country can no more be exported than the land or the houses4 ,can you drive away the ,london and ,north-,western ,railway8 ,can you drive away the factories of ,manchester1 the mines of the ,black ,country1 the canals1 the buildings1 the machinery1 the docks1 the plant1 the apparatus8 ,impossible1 on the very face of it6 ,most of the capital of a country is fixed in its soil1 and can't be uprooted4 ,people fall into this error about driving away capital because they know you can sell particular railway shares or a particular factory and leave the country with the proceeds1 provided somebody else is willing to buy2 but you can't sell all the railways and all the factories in a lump1 and clear out with the capital4 ,no1 no2 ,england stands where she does1 because ,god put her there2 and until ,he invents a new order of things 7which may1 of course1 happen any day--as1 for example1 if aerial navigation came in7 she must continue1 in spite of minor changes1 to maintain in the main her present position4 ,but a truce to these frivolities6 ,the little ,italian boy next door calls me to play ball with him1 with a green lemon from the garden4 ,vengo1 ,luigi1 vengo6 ,i return at once to the realities of life1 and dismiss such shadows4 ,,vii4 ,,the ,,game ,,and ,,the ,,rules4 ,a sportive friend of mine1 a mighty golfer1 is fond of saying1 ,you ,radicals want to play the game without the rules4 ,to which ,i am accustomed mildly to retort1 ,not at all2 but we think the rules unfair1 and so we want to see them altered4 ,now life is a very peculiar game1 which differs in many important respects even from compulsory football4 ,the ,rugby scrimmage is mere child's play by the side of it4 ,there's no possibility of shirking it4 ,a medical certificate won't get you off2 whether you like it or not1 play you must in your appointed order4 ,we are all unwilling competitors4 ,nobody asks our naked little souls beforehand whether they would prefer to be born into the game or to remain1 unfleshed1 in the limbo of non-existence4 ,willy nilly1 every one of us is thrust into the world by an irresponsible act of two previous players2 and once there1 we must play out the set as best we may to the bitter end1 however little we like it or the rules that order it4 ,that1 it must be admitted1 makes a grave distinction from the very outset between the game of human life and any other game with which we are commonly acquainted4 ,it also makes it imperative upon the framers of the rules so to frame them that no one player shall have an unfair or unjust advantage over any of the others4 ,and since the penalty of bad play1 or bad success in the match1 is death1 misery1 starvation1 it behoves the rule-makers to be more scrupulously particular as to fairness and equity than in any other game like cricket or tennis4 ,it behoves them to see that all start fair1 and that no hapless beginner is unduly handicapped4 ,to compel men to take part in a match for dear life1 whether they wish it or not1 and then to insist that some of them shall wield bats and some mere broom-sticks1 irrespective of height1 weight1 age1 or bodily infirmity1 is surely not fair4 ,it justifies the committee in calling for a revision4 ,but things are far worse than even that in the game as actually played in ,europe4 ,what shall we say of rules which decide dogmatically that one set of players are hereditarily entitled to be always batting1 while another set1 less lucky1 have to field for ever1 and to be fined or imprisoned for not catching8 ,what shall we say of rules which give one group a perpetual right to free lunch in the tent1 while the remainder have to pick up what they can for themselves by gleaning among the stubble8 ,how justify the principle in accordance with which the captain on one side has an exclusive claim to the common ground of the club1 and may charge every player exactly what he likes for the right to play upon it8--especially when the choice lies between playing on such terms1 or being cast into the void1 yourself and your family4 ,and then to think that the ground thus tabooed by one particular member may be all ,sutherlandshire1 or1 still worse1 all ,westminster6 ,decidedly1 these rules call for instant revision2 and the unprivileged players must be submissive indeed who consent to put up with them4 ,friends and fellow-members1 let us cry with one voice1 ,the links for the players6 ,once more1 just look at the singular rule in our own ,all ,england club1 by which certain assorted members possess a hereditary right to veto all decisions of the elective committee1 merely because they happen to be their fathers' sons1 and the club long ago very foolishly permitted the like privilege to their ancestors6 ,that is an irrational interference with the liberty of the players which hardly anybody nowadays ventures to defend in principle1 and which is only upheld in some half-hearted way 7save in the case of that fossil anachronism1 the ,duke of ,argyll7 by supposed arguments of convenience4 ,it won't last long now2 there is talk in the committee of mending or ending it4 ,it shows the long-suffering nature of the poor blind players at this compulsory game of national football that they should ever for one moment permit so monstrous an assumption--permit the idea that one single player may wield a substantive voice and vote to outweigh tens of thousands of his fellow-members6 ,these questions of procedure1 however1 are after all small matters4 ,it is the real hardships of the game that most need to be tackled4 ,why should one player be born into the sport with a prescriptive right to fill some easy place in the field1 while another has to fag on from morning to night in the most uninteresting and fatiguing position8 ,why should pt de foie gras and champagne-cup in the tent be so unequally distributed8 ,why should those who have made fewest runs and done no fielding be admitted to partake of these luxuries1 free of charge1 while those who have borne the brunt of the fight1 those who have suffered from the heat of the day1 those who have contributed most to the honour of the victory1 are turned loose1 unfed1 to do as they can for themselves by hook or by crook somehow8 ,these are the questions some of us players are now beginning to ask ourselves2 and we don't find them efficiently answered by the bald statement that we want to play the game without the rules1 and that we ought to be precious glad the legislators of the club haven't made them a hundred times harder against us4 ,no1 no2 the rules themselves must be altered4 ,time was1 indeed1 when people used to think they were made and ordained by divine authority4 ,cum privilegio was the motto of the captains4 ,but we know very well now that every club settles its own standing orders1 and that it can alter and modify them as fundamentally as it pleases4 ,lots of funny old saws are still uttered upon this subject--,there must always be rich and poor2 ,you can't interfere with economical laws2 ,if you were to divide up everything to-morrow1 at the end of a fortnight you'd find the same differences and inequalities as ever4 ,the last-named argument 7,i believe it considers itself by courtesy an argument7 is one which no self-respecting ,radical should so much as deign to answer4 ,nobody that ,i ever heard of for one moment proposed to divide up everything1 or1 for that matter1 anything3 and the imputation that somebody did or does is a proof either of intentional malevolence or of crass stupidity4 ,neither should be encouraged2 and you encourage them by pretending to take them seriously4 ,it is the initial injustices of the game that we ,radicals object to--the injustices which prevent us from all starting fair and having our even chance of picking up a livelihood4 ,we don't want to divide up everything--a most futile proceeding2 but we do want to untie the legs and release the arms of the handicapped players4 ,to drop metaphor at last1 it is the conditions we complain about4 ,alter the conditions1 and there would be no need for division1 summary or gradual4 ,the game would work itself out spontaneously without your intervention4 ,the injustice of the existing set of rules simply appals the ,radical4 ,yet oddly enough1 this injustice itself appeals rather to the comparative looker-on than to the heavily-handicapped players in person4 ,they1 poor creatures1 dragging their log in patience1 have grown so accustomed to regarding the world as another man's oyster1 that they put up uncomplainingly for the most part with the most patent inequalities4 ,perhaps 'tis their want of imagination that makes them unable to conceive any other state of things as even possible--like the dog who accepts kicking as the natural fate of doghood4 ,at any rate1 you will find1 if you look about you1 that the chief reformers are not1 as a rule1 the ill-used classes themselves1 but the sensitive and thinking souls who hate and loathe the injustice with which others are treated4 ,most of the best ,radicals ,i have known were men of gentle birth and breeding4 ,not all3 others1 just as earnest1 just as eager1 just as chivalrous1 sprang from the masses4 ,yet the gently-reared preponderate4 ,it is a common ,tory taunt to say that the battle is one between the ,haves and the ,have-nots4 ,that is by no means true4 ,it is between the selfish ,haves1 on one side1 and the unselfish ,haves1 who wish to see something done for the ,have-nots1 on the other4 ,as for the poor ,have-nots themselves1 they are mostly inarticulate4 ,indeed1 the ,tory almost admits as much when he alters his tone and describes the sympathising and active few as paid agitators4 ,for myself1 however1 ,i am a born ,conservative4 ,i hate to see any old custom or practice changed2 unless1 indeed1 it is either foolish or wicked--like most existing ones4 ,,viii4 ,,the ,r,,le ,,of ,,prophet4 ,one great ,english thinker and artist once tried the rash experiment of being true to himself--of saying out boldly1 without fear or reserve1 the highest and noblest and best that was in him4 ,he gave us the most exquisite lyrics in the ,english language2 he moulded the thought of our first youth as no other poet has ever yet moulded it2 he became the spiritual father of the richest souls in two succeeding generations of ,englishmen4 ,and what reward did he get for it8 ,he was expelled from his university4 ,he was hounded out of his country4 ,he was deprived of his own children4 ,he was denied the common appeal to the law and courts of justice4 ,he was drowned1 an exile1 in a distant sea1 and burned in solitude on a foreign shore4 ,and after his death he was vilified and calumniated by wretched penny-a-liners1 or 7worse insult still7 apologised for1 with half-hearted shrugs1 by lukewarm advocates4 ,the purest in life and the most unselfish in purpose of all mankind1 he was persecuted alive with the utmost rancour of hate1 and pursued when dead with the vilest shafts of malignity4 ,he never even knew in his scattered grave the good he was to do to later groups of thinkers4 ,it was a noble example1 of course2 but not1 you will admit1 an alluring one for others to follow4 ,be true to yourself1 say the copy-book moralists1 and you may be sure the result will at last be justified4 ,no doubt2 but in how many centuries8 ,and what sort of life will you lead yourself1 meanwhile1 for your allotted space of threescore years and ten1 unless haply hanged1 or burned1 or imprisoned before it8 ,what the copy-book moralists mean is merely this--that sooner or later your principles will triumph1 which may or may not be the case according to the nature of the principles4 ,but even suppose they do1 are you to ignore yourself in the interim--you1 a human being with emotions1 sensations1 domestic affections1 and1 in the majority of instances1 wife and children on whom to expend them8 ,why should it be calmly taken for granted by the world that if you have some new and true thing to tell humanity 7which humanity1 of course1 will toss back in your face with contumely and violence7 you are bound to blurt it out1 with childish unreserve1 regardless of consequences to yourself and to those who depend upon you8 ,why demand of genius or exceptional ability a gratuitous sacrifice which you would deprecate as wrong and unjust to others in the ordinary citizen8 ,for the genius1 too1 is a man1 and has his feelings4 ,the fact is1 society considers that in certain instances it has a right to expect the thinker will martyrise himself on its account1 while it stands serenely by and heaps faggots on the pile1 with every mark of contempt and loathing4 ,but society is mistaken4 ,no man is bound to martyrise himself2 in a great many cases a man is bound to do the exact opposite4 ,he has given hostages to ,fortune1 and his first duty is to the hostages4 ,we ask you for bread1 his children may well say1 and you give us a noble moral lesson4 ,we ask you for clothing1 and you supply us with a beautiful poetical fancy4 ,this is not according to bargain4 ,wife and children have a first mortgage on a man's activities2 society has only a right to contingent remainders4 ,a great many sensible men who had truths of deep import to deliver to the world must have recognised these facts in all times and places1 and must have held their tongues accordingly4 ,instead of speaking out the truths that were in them1 they must have kept their peace1 or have confined themselves severely to the ordinary platitudes of their age and nation4 ,why ruin yourself by announcing what you feel and believe1 when all the reward you will get for it in the end will be social ostracism1 if not even the rack1 the stake1 or the pillory8 ,the ,shelleys and ,rousseaus there's no holding1 of course2 they will run right into it2 but the ,goethes--oh1 no1 they keep their secret4 ,indeed1 ,i hold it as probable that the vast majority of men far in advance of their times have always held their tongues consistently1 save for mere common babble1 on ,lord ,chesterfield's principle that ,wise men never say4 ,the rle of prophet is thus a thankless and difficult one4 ,nor is it quite certainly of real use to the community4 ,for the prophet is generally too much ahead of his times4 ,he discounts the future at a ruinous rate1 and he takes the consequences4 ,if you happen ever to have read the ,old ,testament you must have noticed that the prophets had generally a hard time of it4 ,the leader is a very different stamp of person4 ,he stands well abreast of his contemporaries1 and just half a pace in front of them2 and he has power to persuade even the inertia of humanity into taking that one half-step in advance he himself has already made bold to adventure4 ,his post is honoured1 respected1 remunerated4 ,but the prophet gets no thanks1 and perhaps does mankind no benefit4 ,he sees too quick4 ,and there can be very little good indeed in so seeing4 ,if one of us had been an astronomer1 and had discovered the laws of ,kepler1 ,newton1 and ,laplace in the thirteenth century1 ,i think he would have been wise to keep the discovery to himself for a few hundred years or so4 ,otherwise1 he would have been burned for his trouble4 ,galileo1 long after1 tried part of the experiment a decade or so too soon1 and got no good by it4 ,but in moral and social matters the danger is far graver4 ,i would say to every aspiring youth who sees some political or economical or ethical truth quite clearly3 ,keep it dark6 ,don't mention it6 ,nobody will listen to you2 and you1 who are probably a person of superior insight and higher moral aims than the mass1 will only destroy your own influence for good by premature declarations4 ,the world will very likely come round of itself to your views in the end2 but if you tell them too soon1 you will suffer for it in person1 and will very likely do nothing to help on the revolution in thought that you contemplate4 ,for thought that is too abruptly ahead of the mass never influences humanity4 ,but sometimes the truth will out in spite of one6 ,ah1 yes1 that's the worst of it4 ,do as ,i say1 not as ,i do4 ,if possible1 repress it4 ,it is a noble and beautiful thing to be a martyr1 especially if you are a martyr in the cause of truth1 and not1 as is often the case1 of some debasing and degrading superstition4 ,but nobody has a right to demand of you that you should be a martyr4 ,and some people have often a right to demand that you should resolutely refuse the martyr's crown on the ground that you have contracted prior obligations1 inconsistent with the purely personal luxury of martyrdom4 ',tis a luxury for a few4 ,it befits only the bachelor1 the unattached1 and the economically spareworthy4 ,these be pessimistic pronouncements1 you say4 ,well1 no1 not exactly4 ,for1 after all1 we must never shut our eyes to the actual2 and in the world as it is1 meliorism1 not optimism1 is the true opposite of pessimism4 ,optimist and pessimist are both alike in a sense1 seeing they are both conservative2 they sit down contented--the first with the smug contentment that says ,all's well2 ,i have enough2 why this fuss about others8 the second with the contentment of blank despair that says1 ,all's hopeless2 all's wrong2 why try uselessly to mend it8 ,the meliorist attitude1 on the contrary1 is rather to say1 ,much is wrong2 much painful2 what can we do to improve it8 ,and from this point of view there is something we can all do to make martyrdom less inevitable in the end1 for the man who has a thought1 a discovery1 an idea1 to tell us4 ,such men are rare1 and their thought1 when they produce it1 is sure to be unpalatable4 ,for1 if it were otherwise1 it would be thought of our own type--familiar1 banal1 commonplace1 unoriginal4 ,it would encounter no resistance1 as it thrilled on its way through our brain1 from established errors4 ,what the genius and the prophet are there for is just that--to make us listen to unwelcome truths1 to compel us to hear1 to drive awkward facts straight home with sledge-hammer force to the unwilling hearts and brains of us4 ,not what you want to hear1 or what ,i want to hear1 is good and useful for us2 but what we don't want to hear1 what we can't bear to think1 what we hate to believe1 what we fight tooth and nail against4 ,the man who makes us listen to that is the seer and the prophet2 he comes upon us like ,shelley1 or ,whitman1 or ,ibsen1 and plumps down horrid truths that half surprise1 half disgust us4 ,he shakes us out of our lethargy4 ,to such give ear1 though they say what shocks you4 ,weigh well their hateful ideas4 ,avoid the vulgar vice of sneering and carping at them4 ,learn to examine their nude thought without shrinking1 and examine it all the more carefully when it most repels you4 ,naked verity is an acquired taste2 it is never beautiful at first sight to the unaccustomed vision4 ,remember that no question is finally settled2 that no question is wholly above consideration2 that what you cherish as holiest is most probably wrong2 and that in social and moral matters especially 7where men have been longest ruled by pure superstitions7 new and startling forms of thought have the highest a priori probability in their favour4 ,dismiss your idols4 ,give every opinion its fair chance of success--especially when it seems to you both wicked and ridiculous1 recollecting that it is better to let five hundred crude guesses run loose about the world unclad1 than to crush one fledgling truth in its callow condition4 ,to the ,greeks1 foolishness3 to the ,jews1 a stumbling-block4 ,if you can't be one of the prophets yourself1 you can at least abstain from helping to stone them4 ,dear me6 ,these reflections to-day are anything but post-prandial4 ,the gnocchi and the olives must certainly have disagreed with me4 ,but perhaps it may some of it be wrote sarcastic4 ,i have heard tell there is a thing called irony4 ,,ix4 ,,the ,,romance ,,of ,,the ,,clash ,,of ,,races4 ,the world has expanded faster in the last thirty years than in any previous age since the spacious days of great ,elizabeth4 ,and with its expansion1 of course1 our ideas have widened4 ,i believe ,europe is now in the midst of just such an outburst of thought and invention as that which followed the discovery of ,america1 and of the new route to ,india by the ,cape of ,good ,hope4 ,but ,i don't want to insist too strongly upon that point1 because ,i know a great many of my contemporaries are deeply hurt by the base and spiteful suggestion that they and their fellows are really quite as good as any fish that ever came out of the sea before them4 ,i only desire now to call attention for a moment to one curious result entailed by this widening of the world upon our literary productivity--a result which1 though obvious enough when one comes to look at it1 seems to me hitherto to have strangely escaped deliberate notice4 ,in one word1 the point of which ,i speak is the comparative cosmopolitanisation of letters1 and especially the introduction into literary art of the phenomena due to the ,clash of ,races4 ,this ,clash itself is the one picturesque and novel feature of our otherwise somewhat prosaic and machine-made epoch2 and1 therefore1 it has been eagerly seized upon1 with one accord1 by all the chief purveyors of recent literature1 and especially of fiction4 ,they have espied in it1 with technical instinct1 the best chance for obtaining that fresh interest which is essential to the success of a work of art4 ,we were all getting somewhat tired1 it must be confessed1 of the old places and the old themes4 ,the insipid loves of ,anthony ,trollope's blameless young people were beginning to pall upon us4 ,the jaded palate of the ,anglo-,celtic race pined for something hot1 with a touch of fresh spice in it4 ,it demanded curried fowl and ,jamaica peppers4 ,hence1 on the one hand1 the sudden vogue of the novelists of the younger countries--,tolstoi and ,tourgenieff1 ,ibsen and ,bjornson1 ,mary ,wilkins and ,howells--who transplanted us at once into fresh scenes1 new people3 hence1 on the other hand1 the tendency on the part of our own latest writers--the ,stevensons1 the ,hall ,caines1 the ,marion ,crawfords1 the ,rider ,haggards--to go far afield among the lower races or the later civilisations for the themes of their romances4 ,alas1 alas1 ,i see breakers before me6 ,must ,i pause for a moment in the flowing current of a paragraph to explain1 as in an aside1 that ,i include ,marion ,crawford of set purpose among our own late writers1 while ,i count ,mary ,wilkins and ,howells as ,transatlantic aliens8 ,experience teaches me that ,i must2 else shall ,i have that annoying animalcule1 the microscopic critic1 coming down upon me in print with his petty objection that ,mr4 ,crawford is an ,american4 ,go to1 oh1 blind one6 ,and ,whistler also1 ,i suppose1 and ,sargent1 and1 perhaps1 ,ashmead ,bartlett6 ,what6 have you read ,sarracinesca and not learnt that its author is ,european to the core8 ',twas for such as you that the ,irishman invented his brilliant retort3 ,and if ,i was born in a stable would ,i be a horse8 ,not merely1 however1 do our younger writers go into strange and novel places for the scenes of their stories2 the important point to notice in the present connection is that1 consciously or unconsciously to themselves1 they have perceived the mighty influence of this ,clash of ,races1 and have chosen the relations of the civilised people with their savage allies1 or enemies1 or subjects1 as the chief theme of their handicraft4 ',tis a momentous theme1 for it encloses in itself half the problems of the future4 ,the old battles are now well-nigh fought out2 but new ones are looming ahead for us4 ,the cosmopolitanisation of the world is introducing into our midst strange elements of discord4 ,a conglomerate of unwelded ethnical elements usurps the stage of history4 ,america and ,south ,africa have already their negro question2 ,california and ,australia have already their ,chinese question2 ,russia is fast getting her ,asiatic1 her ,mahommedan question4 ,even ,france1 the most narrowly ,european in interest of ,european countries1 has yet her ,algeria1 her ,tunis1 her ,tonquin4 ,spain has ,cuba and the ,philippines4 ,holland has ,java4 ,germany is burdening herself with the unborn troubles of a ,hinterland4 ,and as for ,england1 she staggers on still under the increasing load of ,india1 ,hong ,kong1 ,singapore1 ,south ,africa1 the ,west ,indies1 ,fiji1 ,new ,guinea1 ,north ,borneo--all of them rife with endless race-questions1 all pregnant with difficulties4 ,who can be surprised that amid this seething turmoil of colours1 instincts1 creeds1 and languages1 art should have fastened upon the race-problems as her great theme for the moment8 ,and she has fastened upon them everywhere4 ,france herself has not been able to avoid the contagion4 ,pierre ,loti is the most typical ,french representative of this vagabond spirit2 and the question of the peoples naturally envisages itself to his mind in true ,gallic fashion in the ,mariage de ,loti and in ,madame ,chrysanthme4 ,he sees it through a halo of vague sexual sentimentalism4 ,in ,england1 it was ,rider ,haggard from the ,cape who first set the mode visibly2 and nothing is more noteworthy in all his work than the fact that the interest mainly centres in the picturesque juxtaposition and contrast of civilisation and savagery4 ,once the cue was given1 what more natural than that young ,rudyard ,kipling1 fresh home from ,india1 brimming over with genius and with knowledge of two concurrent streams of life that flow on side by side yet never mingle1 should take up his parable in due course1 and storm us all by assault with his light field artillery8 ,then ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 born a wandering ,scot1 with roving ,scandinavian and fiery ,celtic blood in his veins1 must needs settle down1 like a ,viking that he is1 in far ,samoa1 there to charm and thrill us by turns with the romance of ,polynesia4 ,the example was catching4 ,almost without knowing it1 other writers have turned for subjects to similar fields4 ,dr4 ,isaacs1 ,paul ,patoff1 ,by ,proxy1 were upon us4 ,even ,hall ,caine himself1 in some ways a most insular type of genius1 was forced in ,the ,scapegoat to carry us off from ,cumberland and ,man to ,morocco4 ,sir ,edwin ,arnold inflicts upon us the tragedies of ,japan4 ,i have been watching this tendency long myself with the interested eye of a dealer engaged in the trade1 and therefore anxious to keep pace with every changing breath of popular favour3 and ,i notice a constant increase from year to year in the number of short stories in magazines and newspapers dealing with the romance of the inferior races4 ,i notice1 also1 that such stories are increasingly successful with the public4 ,this shows that1 whether the public knows it or not itself1 the question of race is interesting it more and more4 ,it is gradually growing to understand the magnitude of the change that has come over civilisation by the inclusion of ,asia1 ,africa1 and ,australasia within its circle4 ,even the ,queen is learning ,hindustani4 ,there is a famous passage in ,green's ,short ,history of the ,english ,people which describes in part that strange outburst of national expansion under ,elizabeth1 when ,raleigh1 ,drake1 and ,frobisher scoured the distant seas1 and when at home ,england became a nest of singing birds1 with ,shakespeare1 ,spenser1 ,fletcher1 and ,marlow4 ,the old sober notions of thrift1 says the picturesque historian1 melted before the strange revolutions of fortune wrought by the ,new ,world4 ,gallants gambled away a fortune at a sitting1 and sailed off to make a fresh one in the ,indies4 7,read rather to-day at ,kimberley1 ,johannesburg1 ,vancouver47 ,visions of galleons loaded to the brim with pearls and diamonds and ingots of silver1 dreams of ,el ,dorados where all was of gold1 threw a haze of prodigality and profusion over the imagination of the meanest seaman4 ,the wonders1 too1 of the ,new ,world kindled a burst of extravagant fancy in the ,old4 ,the strange medley of past and present which distinguishes its masques and feastings only reflected the medley of men's thoughts4444 ,a 'wild man' from the ,indies chanted the ,queen's praises at ,kenilworth1 and ,echo answered him4 ,elizabeth turned from the greetings of sibyls and giants to deliver the enchanted lady from her tyrant1 ',sans ,pitie4' ,shepherdesses welcomed her with carols of the spring1 while ,ceres and ,bacchus poured their corn and grapes at her feet4 ,oh1 gilded youth of the ,gaiety1 mutato nomine de te ,fabula narratur4 ,yours1 yours is this glory6 ,for our own age1 too1 is a second ,elizabethan4 ,it blossoms out daily into such flowers of fancy as never bloomed before1 save then1 on ,british soil4 ,when men tell you nowadays we have no great writers left1 believe not the silly parrot cry4 ,nay1 rather1 laugh it down for them4 ,we move in the midst of one of the mightiest epochs earth has ever seen1 an epoch which will live in history hereafter side by side with the ,athens of ,pericles1 the ,rome of ,augustus1 the ,florence of ,lorenzo1 the ,england of ,elizabeth4 ,don't throw away your birthright by ignoring the fact4 ,live up to your privileges4 ,gaze around you and know4 ,be a conscious partaker in one of the great ages of humanity4 ,x4 ,,the ,,monopolist ,,instincts4 ,in the first of these after-dinner causeries ,i ventured humbly to remark that ,patriotism was a vulgar vice of which ,i had never been guilty4 ,that innocent indiscretion of mine aroused at the moment some unfavourable comment4 ,i confess ,i was sorry for it4 ,but ,i passed it by at the time1 lest ,i should speak too hastily and lose my temper4 ,i recur to the subject now1 at the hour of the cigarette1 when man can discourse most genially of his bitterest enemy4 ,and ,monopoly is mine4 ,its very name is hateful4 ,i don't often say what ,i think4 ,at least1 not much of it4 ,i don't often get the chance4 ,and1 besides1 being a timid and a modest man1 ,i'm afraid to4 ,but just this once1 ,i'm going to try it on4 ,object to my opinions as you will4 ,but still1 let me express them4 ,strike--but hear me6 ,has it ever occurred to you that one object of reading is to learn things you never thought of before1 and would never think of now1 unless you were told them8 ,patriotism is one of the ,monopolist ,instincts4 ,and the ,monopolist ,instincts are the greatest enemies of the social life in humanity4 ,they are what we have got in the end to outlive4 ,the test of a man's place in the scale of being is how far he has outlived them4 ,they are surviving relics of the ape and tiger4 ,but we must let the ape and tiger die4 ,we must begin to be human4 ,i will take ,patriotism first1 because it is the most specious of them all1 and has still a self-satisfied way of masquerading as a virtue4 ,but after all what is ,patriotism8 ,my country1 right or wrong2 and just because it is my country4 ,it is nothing more than a wider form of selfishness4 ,often enough1 indeed1 it is even a narrow one4 ,it means1 ,my business interests against the business interests of other people2 and let the taxes of my fellow-citizens pay to support them4 ,at other times it is pure ,jingoism4 ,it means1 ,my country against other countries6 ,my army and navy against other fighters6 ,my right to annex unoccupied territory over the equal right of all other people6 ,my power to oppress all weaker nationalities1 all inferior races6 ,it never means anything good4 ,for if a cause is just1 like ,ireland's1 or once ,italy's1 then 'tis the good man's duty to espouse it with warmth1 be it his own or another's4 ,and if a cause be bad1 then 'tis the good man's duty to oppose it tooth and nail1 irrespective of your ,patriotism4 ,true1 a good man will feel more sensitively anxious that justice should be done by the particular ,state of which he happens himself to be a member than by any other1 because he is partly responsible for the corporate action2 but then1 people who feel deeply this joint moral responsibility of all the citizens are not praised as patriots but reviled as unpatriotic4 ,to urge that our own country should strive with all its might to be better1 higher1 purer1 nobler1 juster than other countries around it--the only kind of ,patriotism worth a brass farthing in a righteous man's eyes--is accounted by most men both wicked and foolish4 ,patriotism1 then1 is the collective or national form of the ,monopolist ,instincts4 ,and like all those ,instincts1 it is a relic of savagery1 which the ,man of the ,future is now engaged in out-living4 ,property is the next form4 ,that1 on the very face of it1 is a viler and more sordid one4 ,for ,patriotism at least can lay claim to some expansiveness beyond mere individual interest2 whereas property stops dead short at the narrowest limits4 ,it is not ,us against the world6 but ,me against my fellow-citizens6 ,it is the final result of the industrial war in its most hideous avatar4 ,look how it scars the fair face of our ,england with its anti-social notice-boards1 ,trespassers will be prosecuted6 ,it says1 in effect1 ,this is my land4 ,god made it2 but ,i have acquired it and tabooed it4 ,the grass on it grows green2 but only for me4 ,the mountains rise beautiful2 no foot of man1 save mine and my gamekeepers'1 shall tread them4 ,the waterfalls gleam fresh and cool in the glen3 avaunt there1 you non-possessors2 you shall never see them6 ,all this is my own4 ,and ,i choose to monopolise it4 ,or is it the capitalist8 ,i will add field to field1 he says1 in despite of his own scripture2 ,i will join railway to railway4 ,i will juggle into my own hands all the instruments for the production of wealth that ,i can lay hold of2 and ,i will use them for myself against the producer and the consumer4 ,i will enrich myself by 'corners' on the necessaries of life2 ,i will make food dear for the poor1 that ,i myself may roll in needless luxury4 ,i will monopolise whatever ,i can seize1 and the people may eat straw4 ,that temper1 too1 humanity must outlive4 ,and those who can't outlive it of themselves1 or be warned in time1 must be taught by stern lessons that their race has outstripped them4 ,as for slavery1 'tis now gone4 ,that was the vilest of them all4 ,it was the naked assertion of the ,monopolist platform3 ,you live1 not for yourself1 but wholly and solely for me4 ,i disregard your life entirely1 and use you as my chattel4 ,it died at last of the moral indignation of humanity4 ,it died when a ,southern court of so-called justice formulated in plain words the underlying principle of its hateful creed3 ,a black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect4 ,that finally finished it4 ,we no longer allow every man to wallop his own nigger4 ,and though the last relics of it die hard in ,queensland1 ,south ,africa1 ,demerara1 we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that one ,monopolist ,instinct out of the group is pretty well bred out of us4 ,except as regards women6 ,there1 it lingers still4 ,the ,man says even now to himself3--,this woman is mine4 ,if she ventures to have a heart or a will of her own1 woe betide her6 ,i have tabooed her for life2 let any other man touch her1 let her look at any other man--and--knife1 revolver1 or law court1 they shall both of them answer for it6 ,there you have in all its natural ugliness another ,monopolist ,instinct--the deepest-seated of all1 the vilest1 the most barbaric4 ,she is not yours3 she is her own3 unhand her6 ,the ,turk takes his offending slave1 sews her up in a sack1 and flings her into the ,bosphorus4 ,the ,christian ,englishman drags her shame before an open court1 and divorces her with contumely4 ,her shame1 ,i say1 in the common phrase1 because though to me it is no shame that any human being should follow the dictates of his or her own heart1 it is a shame to the woman in the eyes of the world1 and a life of disgrace she must live thenceforward4 ,all this is ,monopoly and essentially slavery4 ,as man lives down the ,ape and ,tiger stage1 he will learn to say1 rather3 ,be mine while you can2 but the day you cease to feel you can be mine willingly1 don't disgrace your own body by yielding it up where your soul feels loathing2 don't consent to be the mother of children by a father you despise or dislike or are tired of4 ,let us kiss and part4 ,go where you will2 and my good will go with you6 ,till the man can say that with a sincere heart1 why1 to borrow a phrase from ,george ,meredith1 he may have passed ,seraglio ,point1 but he hasn't rounded ,cape ,turk yet4 ,you find that a hard saying1 do you8 ,you kick against freedom for wife or daughter8 ,well1 yes1 no doubt2 you are still a ,monopolist4 ,but1 believe me1 the earnest and solemn expression of a profound belief never yet did harm to any one4 ,i look forward to the time when women shall be as free in every way as men1 not by levelling down1 but by levelling up2 not1 as some would have us think1 by enslaving the men1 but by elevating1 emancipating1 unshackling the women4 ,there is a charming little ditty in ,louis ,stevenson's ,child's ,garden of ,verse1 which always seems to me to sum up admirably the ,monopolist attitude4 ,here it is4 ,look well at it3-- ,when ,i am grown to man's estate ,i shall be very proud and great1 ,and tell the other girls and boys1 ,not to meddle with my toys4 ,that is the way of the ,monopolist4 ,it catches him in the very act4 ,he says to all the world3 ,hands off6 ,my property6 ,don't walk on my grass6 ,don't trespass in my park6 ,beware of my gunboats6 ,no trifling with my women6 ,i am the king of the castle4 ,you meddle with me at your peril4 ,ours6 not ,mine6 is the watchword of the future4 ,,xi4 ,,mere ,,amateurs4 ,he was a mere amateur2 but still1 he did some good work in science4 ,increasingly of late years ,i have heard these condescending words uttered1 in the fatherland of ,bacon1 of ,newton1 of ,darwin1 when some ,bates or ,spottiswoode has been gathered to his fathers4 ,it was not so once4 ,time was when all ,english science was the work of amateurs--and very well indeed the amateurs did it4 ,i don't think anybody who does me the honour to cognise my humble individuality at all will ever be likely to mistake me for a laudator temporis acti4 ,on the contrary1 so far as ,i can see1 the past seems generally to have been such a distinct failure all along the line that the one lesson we have to learn from it is1 to go and do otherwise4 ,i am one on that point with ,shelley and ,rousseau4 ,but it does not follow1 because most old things are bad1 that all new things and rising things are necessarily and indisputably in their own nature excellent4 ,novelties1 too1 may be retrograde4 ,and even our great-grandfathers occasionally blundered upon something good in which we should do well to imitate them4 ,the amateurishness of old ,english science was one of these good things now in course of abolition by the fashionable process of ,germanisation4 ,don't imagine it was only for ,france that #ahgj was fatal4 ,the sad successes of that deadly year sent a wave of triumphant ,teutonism over the face of ,europe4 ,i suppose it is natural to man to worship success2 but ever since #ahgj it is certainly the fact that if you wish to gain respect and consideration for any proposed change of system you must say1 ,they do it so in ,germany4 ,in education and science this is especially the case4 ,pedants always admire pedants4 ,and ,germany having shown herself to be easily first of ,european ,states in her pedant-manufacturing machinery1 all the assembled dominies of all the rest of the world exclaimed with one voice1 ,go to6 ,let us ,germanise our educational system6 ,now1 the ,german is an excellent workman in his way4 ,patient1 laborious1 conscientious1 he has all the highest qualities of the ideal brick-maker4 ,he produces the best bricks1 and you can generally depend upon him to turn out both honest and workmanlike articles4 ,but he is not an architect4 ,for the architectonic faculty in its highest developments you must come to ,england4 ,and he is not a teacher or expounder4 ,for the expository faculty in its purest form1 the faculty that enables men to flash forth clearly and distinctly before the eyes of others the facts and principles they know and perceive themselves1 you must go to ,france4 ,oh1 dear1 yes2 we may well be proud of ,england4 ,remember1 ,i have already disclaimed more than once in these papers the vulgar error of patriotism4 ,but freedom from that narrow vice does not imply inability to recognise the good qualities of one's own race as well as the bad ones4 ,and the ,englishman1 left to himself and his own native methods1 used to cut a very respectable figure indeed in the domain of science4 ,no other nation has produced a ,newton or a ,darwin4 ,the ,englishman's way was to get up an interest in a subject first2 and then1 working back from the part of it that specially appealed to his own tastes1 to make himself master of the entire field of inquiry4 ,this natural and thoroughly individualistic ,english method enabled him to arrive at new results in a way impossible to the pedantically educated ,german--nay1 even to the lucidly and systematically educated ,frenchman4 ,it was the plan to develop mere amateurs1 ,i admit2 but it was also the plan to develop discoverers and revolutionisers of science4 ,for the man most likely to advance knowledge is not the man who knows in an encyclopdic rote-work fashion the whole circle of the sciences1 but the man who takes a fresh interest for its own sake in some particular branch of inquiry4 ,darwin was a mere amateur4 ,he worked at things for the love of them4 ,so were ,murchison1 ,lyell1 ,benjamin ,franklin1 ,herschel4 ,so were or are ,bates1 ,herbert ,spencer1 ,alfred ,russel ,wallace4 ,mere amateurs6 every man of them4 ,in an evil hour1 however1 our pastors and masters in conclave assembled said to one another1 ,come now1 let us ,teutonise ,english scientific education4 ,and straightway they ,teutonised it4 ,and there began to arise in ,england a new brood of patent machine-made scientists--excellent men in their way1 authorities on the ,arachnida1 knowing all about everything that could be taught in the schools1 but lacking somehow the supreme grace of the old ,english originality4 ,they are first-rate specialists1 ,i allow2 and ,i don't deny that a civilised country has all need of specialists4 ,nay1 ,i even admit that the day of the specialist has only just begun4 ,he will yet go far2 he will impose himself and his yoke upon us4 ,but don't let us therefore make the grand mistake of concluding that our fine old ,english birthright in science--the birthright that gave us our ,newtons1 our ,cavendishes1 our ,darwins1 our ,lyells--was all folly and error4 ,don't let us spoil ourselves in order to become mere second-hand ,germans4 ,let us recognise the fact that each nation has a work of its own to do in the world2 and that as star from star1 so one nation differeth from another in glory4 ,let each of us thank the goodness and the grace that on his birth have smiled1 that he was born of ,english breed1 and not a ,german child4 ,don't you think1 a military gentleman once said to me1 the ,germans are wonderful organisers8 ,no1 ,i answered1 ,i don't2 but ,i think they're excellent drill-sergeants4 ,there are people who drop ,german authorities upon you as if a ,teutonic name were guarantee enough for anything4 ,they say1 ,hausberger asserts1 or ,according to ,schimmelpenninck4 ,this is pure fetichism4 ,believe me1 your man of science isn't necessarily any the better because he comes to you with the label1 ,made in ,germany4 ,the ,german instinct is the instinct of ,frederick ,william of ,prussia--the instinct of drilling4 ,very thorough and efficient men in their way it turns out2 men versed in all the lore of their chosen subject4 ,if they are also men of transcendent ability 7as often happens71 they can give us a comprehensive view of their own chosen field such as few ,englishmen 7except ,sir ,archibald ,geikie1 and he's a ,scot7 can equal4 ,if ,i wanted to select a learned man for a special ,government post--,british ,museum1 and so forth--,i dare say ,i should often be compelled to admit1 as ,government often admits1 that the best man then and there obtainable is the ,german4 ,but if ,i wanted to train ,herbert ,spencers and ,faradays1 ,i would certainly not send them to ,bonn or to ,berlin4 ,john ,stuart ,mill was an ,english ,scotchman1 educated and stuffed by his able father on the ,german system2 and how much of spontaneity1 of vividness1 of verve1 we all of us feel ,john ,stuart ,mill lost by it6 ,one often wonders to what great1 to what still greater1 things that lofty brain might not have attained1 if only ,james ,mill would have given it a chance to develop itself naturally6 ,our ,english gift is originality4 ,our ,english keynote is individuality4 ,let us cling to those precious heirlooms of our ,celtic ancestry1 and refuse to be ,teutonised4 ,let us discard the lessons of the ,potsdam grenadiers4 ,let us write on the pediment of our educational temple1 ,no ,german need apply4 ,let us disclaim that silly phrase ,a mere amateur4 ,let us return to the simple faith in direct observation that made ,english science supreme in ,europe4 ,and may the ,lord gi'e us ,britons a guid conceit o' oorsel's6 ,,xii4 ,a ,,squalid ,,village4 ,strange that the wealthiest class in the wealthiest country in the world should so long have been content to inhabit a squalid village6 ,i'm not going to compare ,london1 as ,englishmen often do1 with ,paris or ,vienna4 ,i won't do two great towns that gross injustice4 ,and1 indeed1 comparison here is quite out of the question4 ,you don't compare ,oxford with ,little ,peddlington1 or ,edinburgh with ,thrums1 and then ask which is the handsomest4 ,things must be alike in kind before you can begin to compare them4 ,and ,london and ,paris are not alike in kind4 ,one is a city1 and a noble city2 the other is a village1 and a squalid village4 ,no2 ,i will not even take a humbler standard of comparison1 and look at ,london side by side with ,brussels1 ,antwerp1 ,munich1 ,turin4 ,each of those is a city1 and a fine city in its way2 but each of them is small4 ,still1 even by their side1 ,london is again but a squalid village4 ,i insist upon that point1 because1 misled by their ancient familiarity with ,london1 most ,englishmen have had their senses and understandings so blunted on this issue1 that they really don't know what is meant by a town1 or a fine town1 when they see one4 ,and don't suppose it's because ,london is in ,britain and these other towns out of it that ,i make these remarks3 for ,bath is a fine town1 ,edinburgh is a fine town1 even ,glasgow and ,newcastle are towns1 while ,london is still a straggling1 sprawling1 invertebrate1 inchoate1 overgrown village4 ,i am as free1 ,i hope1 from anti-patriotic as from patriotic prejudice4 ,the ,high ,street in ,oxford1 ,milsom ,street in ,bath1 ,princes ,street in ,edinburgh1 those are all fine streets that would attract attention even in ,france or ,germany4 ,but the ,strand1 ,piccadilly1 ,regent ,street1 ,oxford ,street--good ,lord1 deliver us6 ,one more caveat as to my meaning4 ,when ,i cite among real towns ,brussels1 ,antwerp1 and ,munich1 ,i am not thinking of the treasures of art those beautiful places contain2 that is another and altogether higher question4 ,towns supreme in this respect often lag far behind others of less importance--lag behind in those external features and that general architectural effectiveness which rightly entitle us to say in a broad sense1 ,this is a fine city4 ,florence1 for example1 contains more treasures of art in a small space than any other town of ,europe2 yet ,florence1 though undoubtedly a town1 and even a fine town1 is not to be compared in this respect1 ,i do not say with ,venice or ,brussels1 but even with ,munich or ,milan4 ,on the other hand1 ,london contains far more treasures of art in its way than ,boston1 ,massachusetts2 but ,boston is a handsome1 well-built1 regular town1 while ,london--well1 ,i will spare you the further repetition of the trite truism that ,london is a squalid village4 ,in one word1 the point ,i am seeking to bring out here is that a town1 as a town1 is handsome or otherwise1 not in virtue of the works of art or antiquity it contains1 but in virtue of its ground-plan1 its architecture1 its external and visible decorations and places--the ,louvre1 the ,boulevards1 the ,champs ,elyses1 the ,place de l',opra4 ,now ,london has no ground-plan4 ,it has no street architecture4 ,it has no decorations1 though it has many uglifications4 ,it is frankly and simply and ostentatiously hideous4 ,and being wholly wanting in a system of any sort--in organic parts1 in idea1 in views1 in vistas--it is only a village1 and a painfully uninteresting one4 ,most ,englishmen see ,london before they see any other great town4 ,they become so familiarised with it that their sense of comparison is dulled and blunted4 ,i had the good fortune to have seen many other great towns before ,i ever saw ,london3 and ,i shall never forget my first sense of surprise at its unmitigated ugliness4 ,get on top of an omnibus--,i don't say in ,paris1 from the ,palais ,royal to the ,arc de ,triomphe1 but in ,brussels1 from the ,gare du ,nord to the ,palais de ,justice--and what do you see8 ,from end to end one unbroken succession of noble and open prospects4 ,i'm not thinking now of the ,grande ,place in the old town1 with its magnificent collection of medival buildings2 the ,great ,fire effectively deprived us of our one sole chance of such an element of beauty in modern ,london4 ,i confine myself on purpose to the parts of ,brussels which are purely recent1 and might have been imitated at a distance in ,london1 if there had been any public spirit or any public body in ,england to imitate them4 7,but unhappily there was neither47 ,recall to mind as you read the strikingly handsome street view that greets you as you emerge from the ,northern ,station down the great central ,boulevards to the ,gare du ,midi--all built within our own memory4 ,then think of the prospects that gradually unfold themselves as you rise on the hill2 the fine vista north towards ,sainte ,marie de ,schaarbeck2 the beautiful ,rue ,royale1 bounded by that charming ,parc2 the unequalled stretch of the ,rue de la ,rgence1 starting from the ,place ,royale with ,godfrey of ,bouillon1 and ending with the imposing mass of the ,palais de ,justice4 ,it is to me a matter for mingled surprise and humiliation that so many ,englishmen can look year after year at that glorious street--perhaps the finest in the world--and yet never think to themselves1 ,mightn't we faintly imitate some small part of this in our wealthy1 ugly1 uncompromising ,london8 ,i always say to ,americans who come to ,europe3 ,when you go to ,england1 don't see our towns1 but see our country4 ,our country is something unequalled in the world3 while our towns6--well1 anyway1 keep away from ,london6 ,with the solitary and not very brilliant exception of the ,embankment1 there isn't a street in ,london where one could take a stranger to admire the architecture4 ,compare that record with the new ,boulevards in ,antwerp1 where almost every house is worth serious study3 or with the ,ring at ,cologne 7to keep close home all the time71 where one can see whole rows of ,german ,renaissance houses of extraordinary interest4 ,what street in ,london can be mentioned in this respect side by side with ,commonwealth ,avenue or ,beacon ,street in ,boston2 with ,euclid ,avenue in ,cleveland1 ,ohio2 with the upper end of ,fifth ,avenue1 ,new ,york2 nay1 even with the new ,via ,roma at ,genoa8 ,why is it that we ,english can't get on the ,king's ,road at ,brighton anything faintly approaching that splendid sea front on the ,digue at ,ostend1 or those coquettish white villas that line the ,promenade des ,anglais at ,nice8 ,the blight of ,london seems to lie over all ,southern ,england4 ,paris looks like the capital of a world-wide empire4 ,london1 looks like a shapeless neglected suburb1 allowed to grow up by accident anyhow4 ,and that's just the plain truth of it4 ',tis a fortuitous concourse of hap-hazard houses4 ,but we are improving somewhat4 ,the ,county ,council is opening out a few new thoroughfares piecemeal4 ,oh yes1 in an illogical1 unsystematic1 ,english patchwork fashion1 we are driving a badly-designed1 unimpressive new street or two1 with no expansive sense of imperial greatness1 through the hopelessly congested and most squalid quarters4 ,but that is all4 ,no grand1 systematic1 reconstructive plan1 no rising to the height of the occasion and the ,empire6 ,you tinker away at a ,shaftesbury ,avenue4 ,parochial1 all of it4 ,and there you get the real secret of our futile attempts at making a town out of our squalid village4 ,the fault lies all at the door of the old ,corporation1 and of the people who made and still make the old ,corporation possible4 ,for centuries1 indeed1 there was really no ,london1 not even a village2 there was only a scratch collection of contiguous villages4 ,the consequence was that here1 at the centre of national life1 the ,english people grew wholly unaccustomed to the bare idea of a town1 and managed everything piecemeal1 on the petty scale of a country vestry4 ,the vestryman intelligence has now overrun the land2 and if the ,london ,county ,council ever succeeds at last in making the congeries of villages into--,i do not say a city1 for that is almost past praying for1 but something analogous to a second-rate ,continental town1 it will only be after long lapse of time and violent struggles with the vestryman level of intellect and feeling4 ,london had many great disadvantages to start with4 ,she lay in a dull and marshy bottom1 with no building stone at hand1 and therefore she was forecondemned by her very position to the curse of brick and stucco1 when ,bath1 ,oxford1 ,edinburgh1 were all built out of their own quarries4 ,then fire destroyed all her medival architecture1 leaving her only ,westminster ,abbey to suggest the greatness of her losses4 ,but brick-earth and fire have been as nothing in their way by the side of the evil wrought by ,gog and ,magog4 ,when five hundred trembling ghosts of naked ,lord ,mayors have to answer for their follies and their sins hereafter1 ,i confidently expect the first question in the appalling indictment will be1 ,why did you allow the richest nation on earth to house its metropolis in a squalid village8 ,we have a ,moloch in ,england to whom we sacrifice much4 ,and his hateful name is ,vested ,interest4 ,,xiii4 ,,concerning ,,zeitgeist4 ,a certain story is told about ,mr4 ,ruskin1 no doubt apocryphal1 but at any rate characteristic4 ,a young lady1 fresh from the ,abyss of ,bayswater1 met the sage one evening at dinner--a gushing young lady1 as many such there be--who1 aglow with joy1 boarded the ,professor at once with her private art-experiences4 ,oh1 ,mr4 ,ruskin1 she cried1 clasping her hands1 do you know1 ,i hadn't been two days in ,florence before ,i discovered what you meant when you spoke about the supreme unapproachableness of ,botticelli4 ,indeed8 ,ruskin answered4 ,well1 that's very remarkable2 for it took me1 myself1 half a lifetime to discover it4 ,the answer1 of course1 was meant to be crushing4 ,how should she1 a brand plucked from the burning of ,bayswater1 be able all at once1 on the very first blush1 to appreciate ,botticelli8 ,and it took the greatest critic of his age half a lifetime6 ,yet ,i venture to maintain1 for all that1 that the young lady was right1 and that the critic was wrong--if such a thing be conceivable4 ,i know1 of course1 that when we speak of ,ruskin we must walk delicately1 like ,agag4 ,but still1 ,i repeat it1 the young lady was right2 and it was largely the unconscious1 pervasive action of ,mr4 ,ruskin's own personality that enabled her to be so4 ,it's all the ,zeitgeist3 that's where it is4 ,the slow irresistible ,zeitgeist4 ,fifty years ago1 men's taste had been so warped and distorted by current art and current criticism that they couldn't see ,botticelli1 however hard they tried at it4 ,he was a sealed book to our fathers4 ,in those days it required a brave1 a vigorous1 and an original thinker to discover any merit in any painter before ,raffael1 except perhaps1 as ,goldsmith wisely remarked1 ,perugino4 ,the man who went then to the ,uffizi or the ,pitti1 after admiring as in duty bound his ,high ,renaissance masters1 found himself suddenly confronted with the ,judith or the ,calumny1 and straightway wondered what manner of strange wild beasts these were that some insane early ,tuscan had once painted to amuse himself in a lucid interval4 ,they were not in the least like the ,correggios and the ,guidos1 the ,lawrences and the ,opies1 that the men of that time had formed their taste upon1 and accepted as their sole artistic standards4 ,to people brought up upon pure ,david and ,thorvaldsen1 the ,primavera at the ,belle ,arti must naturally have seemed like a wild freak of madness4 ,the ,zeitgeist then went all in the direction of cold lifeless correctness2 the idea that the painter's soul counted for something in art was an undreamt of heresy4 ,on your way back from ,paris some day1 stop a night at ,amiens and take the ,cathedral seriously4 ,half the stately interior of that glorious thirteenth century pile is encrusted and overlaid by hideous gewgaw monstrosities of the flashiest ,bernini and baroque period4 ,there they sprawl their obtrusive legs and wave their flaunting theatrical wings to the utter destruction of all repose and consistency in one of the noblest and most perfect buildings of ,europe4 ,nowadays1 any child1 any workman can see at a glance how ugly and how disfiguring those floppy creatures are2 it is impossible to look at them without saying to oneself3 ,why don't they clear away all this high-faluting rubbish1 and let us see the real columns and arches and piers as their makers designed them8 ,yet who was it that put them there1 those unspeakable angels in muslin drapery1 those fly-away nymphs and graces and seraphim8 ,why1 the best and most skilled artists of their day in ,europe4 ,and whence comes it that the merest child can now see instinctively how out of place they are1 how disfiguring1 how incongruous8 ,why1 because the ,gothic revival has taught us all by degrees to appreciate the beauty and delicacy of a style which to our eighteenth century ancestors was mere barbaric medivalism2 has taught us to admire its exquisite purity1 and to dislike the obstrusive introduction into its midst of incongruous and meretricious ,bernini-like flimsiness4 ,the ,zeitgeist has changed1 and we have changed with it4 ,it is just the same with our friend ,botticelli4 ,scarce a dozen years ago1 it was almost an affectation to pretend you admired him4 ,it is no affectation now4 ,hundreds of assorted young women from the ,abyss of ,bayswater may rise any morning here in sacred ,florence and stand genuinely enchanted before the ,adoration of the ,kings1 or the ,venus who floats on her floating shell in a ,botticellian ocean4 ,and why8 ,because ,leighton1 ,holman ,hunt1 ,rossetti1 ,burne-,jones1 ,madox ,brown1 ,strudwick1 have led them slowly up to it by golden steps innumerable4 ,thirty years ago the art of the early ,tuscan painters was something to us ,northerners exotic1 strange1 unconnected1 archological4 ,gradually1 it has been brought nearer and nearer to us on the walls of the ,grosvenor and the ,new ,gallery1 till now he that runs may read2 the ingenuous maiden1 fished from the ,abyss of ,bayswater1 can drink in at a glance what it took a ,ruskin many years of his life and much slow development to attain to piecemeal4 ,that is just what all great men are for--to make the world accept as a truism in the generation after them what it rejected as a paradox in the generation before them4 ,not1 of course1 that there isn't a little of affectation1 and still more of fashion1 to the very end in all of it4 ,an immense number of people1 incapable of genuinely admiring anything for its own sake at all1 are anxious only to be told what they ought to admire1 don't you know1 and will straightway proceed as conscientiously as they can to get up an admiration for it4 ,a friend of mine told me a beautiful example4 ,two aspiring young women1 of the limp-limbed1 short-haired1 sthetic species1 were standing rapt before the circular ,madonna at the ,uffizi4 ,they had gazed at it long and lovingly1 seeing it bore on its frame the magic name of ,botticelli4 ,of a sudden one of the pair happened to look a little nearer at the accusing label4 ,why1 this is not ,sandro1 she cried1 with a revulsion of disgust2 this is only ,aless4 ,and straightway they went off from the spot in high dudgeon at having been misled as they supposed into examining the work of another person of the same name4 ,need ,i point the moral of my apologue1 in this age of enlightenment1 by explaining1 for the benefit of the junior members1 that the gentleman's full name was really ,alessandro1 and that both abbreviations are impartially intended to cover his one and indivisible personality8 ,the first half is official1 like ,alex42 the second affectionate and familiar1 like ,sandy4 ,still1 even after making due allowance for such humbugs as these1 a vast residuum remains of people who1 if born sixty years ago1 could never by any possibility have been made to see there was anything admirable in ,lippi1 ,botticelli1 ,giotto2 but who1 having been born thirty years ago1 see it without an effort4 ,hundreds who read these lines must themselves remember the unmistakable thrill of genuine pleasure with which they first gazed upon the ,fra ,angelicos at ,san ,marco1 the ,memlings at ,bruges1 the ,giottos in the ,madonna dell' ,arena at ,padua4 ,to many of us1 those are real epochs in our inner life4 ,to the men of fifty years ago1 the bare avowal itself would have seemed little short of affected silliness4 ,is the change all due to the teaching of the teachers and the preaching of the preachers8 ,i think not entirely4 ,for1 after all1 the teachers and the preachers are but a little ahead of the age they live in4 ,they see things earlier2 they help to lead us up to them2 but they do not wholly produce the revolutions they inaugurate4 ,humanity as a whole develops consistently along certain pre-established and predestined lines4 ,sooner or later1 a certain point must inevitably be reached2 but some of us reach it sooner1 and most of us later4 ,that's all the difference4 ,every great change is mainly due to the fact that we have all already attained a certain point in development4 ,a step in advance becomes inevitable after that1 and one after another we are sure to take it4 ,in one word1 what it needed a man of genius to see dimly thirty years ago1 it needs a singular fool not to see clearly nowadays4 ,,xiv4 ,,the ,,decline ,,of ,,marriage4 ,men don't marry nowadays4 ,so everybody tells us4 ,and ,i suppose we may therefore conclude1 by a simple act of inference1 that women in turn don't marry either4 ,it takes two1 of course1 to make a quarrel--or a marriage4 ,why is this8 ,young people nowadays want to begin where their fathers left off4 ,men are made so comfortable at present in their clubs4 ,college-bred girls have no taste for housekeeping4 ,rents are so high and manners so luxurious4 ,good heavens1 what silly trash1 what puerile nonsense6 ,are we all little boys and girls1 ,i ask you1 that we are to put one another off with such transparent humbug8 ,here we have to deal with a primitive instinct--the profoundest and deepest-seated instinct of humanity1 save only the instincts of food and drink and of self-preservation4 ,man1 like all other animals1 has two main functions3 to feed his own organism1 and to reproduce his species4 ,ancestral habit leads him1 when mature1 to choose himself a mate--because he loves her4 ,it drives him1 it urges him1 it goads him irresistibly4 ,if this profound impulse is really lacking to-day in any large part of our race1 there must be some correspondingly profound and adequate reason for it4 ,don't let us deceive ourselves with shallow platitudes which may do for drawing-rooms4 ,this is philosophy1 even though post-prandial4 ,let us try to take a philosophic view of the question at issue1 from the point of vantage of a biological outlook4 ,before you begin to investigate the causes of a phenomenon quelconque1 'tis well to decide whether the phenomenon itself is there to investigate4 ,taking society throughout--not in the sense of those forty families to which the term is restricted by ,lady ,charles ,beresford--,i doubt whether marriage is much out of fashion4 ,statistics show a certain decrease1 it is true1 but not an alarming one4 ,among the labouring classes1 ,i imagine men1 and also women1 still wed pretty frequently4 ,when people say1 ,young men won't marry nowadays1 they mean young men in a particular stratum of society1 roughly bounded by a silk hat on ,sundays4 ,now1 when you and ,i were young 7,i take it for granted that you and ,i are approaching the fifties7 young men did marry2 even within this restricted area1 'twas their wholesome way in life to form an attachment early with some nice girl in their own set1 and to start at least with the idea of marrying her4 ,toward that goal they worked2 for that end they endured and sacrificed many things4 ,true1 even then1 the long engagement was the rule2 but the long engagement itself meant some persistent impulse1 some strong impetus marriage-wards4 ,the desire of the man to make this woman his own1 the longing to make this woman happy--normal and healthy endowments of our race--had still much driving-power4 ,nowadays1 ,i seriously think ,i observe in most young men of the middle class around me a distinct and disastrous weakening of the impulse4 ,they don't fall in love as frankly1 as honestly1 as irretrievably as they used to do4 ,they shilly-shally1 they pick and choose1 they discuss1 they criticise4 ,they say themselves these futile foolish things about the club1 and the flat1 and the cost of living4 ,they believe in ,malthus4 ,fancy a young man who believes in ,malthus6 ,they seem in no hurry at all to get married4 ,but thirty or forty years ago1 young men used to rush by blind instinct into the toils of matrimony--because they couldn't help themselves4 ,such ,laodicean luke-warmness betokens in the class which exhibits it a weakening of impulse4 ,that weakening of impulse is really the thing we have to account for4 ,young men of a certain type don't marry1 because--they are less of young men than formerly4 ,wild animals in confinement seldom propagate their kind4 ,only a few caged birds will continue their species4 ,whatever upsets the balance of the organism1 in an individual or a race tends first of all to affect the rate of reproduction4 ,civilise the red man1 and he begins to decrease at once in numbers4 ,turn the ,sandwich ,islands into a trading community1 and the native ,hawaiian refuses forthwith to give hostages to fortune4 ,tahiti is dwindling4 ,from the moment the ,tasmanians were taken to ,norfolk ,island1 not a single ,tasmanian baby was born4 ,the ,jesuits made a model community of ,paraguay2 but they altered the habits of the ,paraguayans so fast that the reverend fathers1 who were1 of course1 themselves celibates1 were compelled to take strenuous and even grotesque measures to prevent the complete and immediate extinction of their converts4 ,other cases in abundance ,i might quote an ,i would2 but ,i limit myself to these4 ,they suffice to exhibit the general principle involved2 any grave upset in the conditions of life affects first and at once the fertility of a species4 ,but colonists often increase with rapidity4 ,ay1 marry1 do they1 where the conditions of life are easy4 ,at the present day most colonists go to fairly civilised regions2 they are transported to their new home by steamboat and railway2 they find for the most part more abundant provender and more wholesome surroundings than in their native country4 ,there is no real upset4 ,better food and easier life1 as ,herbert ,spencer has shown1 result 7other things equal7 in increased fertility4 ,his chapters on this subject in the ,principles of ,biology should be read by everybody who pretends to talk on questions of population4 ,but in new and difficult colonies the increase is slight4 ,whatever compels greater wear and tear of the nervous system proves inimical to the reproductive function4 ,the strain and stress of co-ordination with novel circumstances and novel relations affect most injuriously the organic balance4 ,the ,african negro has long been accustomed to agricultural toil and to certain simple arts in his own country4 ,transported to the ,west ,indies and the ,united ,states1 he found life no harder than of old1 if not1 indeed1 easier4 ,he had abundant food1 protection1 security1 a kind of labour for which he was well adapted4 ,instead of dying out1 therefore1 he was fruitful1 and multiplied1 and replenished the earth amazingly4 ,but the ,red ,indian1 caught blatant in the hunting stage1 refused to be tamed1 and could not swallow civilisation4 ,he pined and dwined and decreased in his reservations4 ,the change was too great1 too abrupt1 too brusque for him4 ,the papoose before long became an extinct animal4 ,is not the same thing true of the middle class of ,england8 ,civilisation and its works have come too quickly upon us4 ,the strain and stress of correlating and co-ordinating the world we live in are getting too much for us4 ,railways1 telegraphs1 the penny post1 the special edition1 have played havoc at last with our nervous systems4 ,we are always on the stretch1 rushing and tearing perpetually4 ,we bolt our breakfasts2 we catch the train or 'bus by the skin of our teeth1 to rattle us into the ,city2 we run down to ,scotland or over to ,paris on business2 we lunch in ,london and dine in ,glasgow1 ,belfast1 or ,calcutta4 7,excuse imagination47 ,the tape clicks perpetually in our ears the last quotation in ,eries2 the telephone rings us up at inconvenient moments4 ,something is always happening somewhere to disturb our equanimity2 we tear open the ,times with feverish haste1 to learn that ,kimberleys or ,jabez ,balfour have fallen1 that ,matabeleland has been painted red1 that shares have gone up1 or gone down1 or evaporated4 ,life is one turmoil of excitement and bustle4 ,financially1 'tis a series of dissolving views2 personally 'tis a rush2 socially1 'tis a mosaic of deftly-fitted engagements4 ,drop out one piece1 and you can never replace it4 ,you are full next week from ,monday to ,saturday--business all day1 what calls itself pleasure 7save the mark67 all evening4 ,poor old ,leisure is dead4 ,we hurry and scurry and flurry eternally4 ,one whirl of work from morning till night3 then dress and dine3 one whirl of excitement from night till morning4 ,a snap of troubled sleep1 and again da capo4 ,not an hour1 not a minute1 we can call our own4 ,a wire from a patient ill abed in ,warwickshire6 ,a wire from a client hard hit in ,hansards6 ,endless editors asking for more copy6 more copy6 ,alter to suit your own particular trade1 and 'tis the life of all of us4 ,the first generation after ,stephenson and the ,rocket pulled through with it somehow4 ,they inherited the sound constitutions of the men who sat on rustic seats in the gardens of the twenties4 ,the second generation--that's you and me--felt the strain of it more severely3 new machines had come in to make life still more complicated3 sixpenny telegrams1 ,bell and ,edison1 submarine cables1 evening papers1 perturbations pouring in from all sides incessantly2 the suburbs growing1 the hubbub increasing1 ,metropolitan railways1 trams1 bicycles1 innumerable3 but natheless we still endured1 and presented the world all the same with a third generation4 ,that third generation--ah me6 there comes the pity of it6 ,one fancies the impulse to marry and rear a family has wholly died out of it4 ,it seems to have died out most in the class where the strain and stress are greatest4 ,i don't think young men of that class to-day have the same feelings towards women of their sort as formerly4 ,nobody1 ,i trust1 will mistake me for a reactionary3 in most ways1 the modern young man is a vast improvement on you and me at twenty-five4 ,but ,i believe there is really among young men in towns less chivalry1 less devotion1 less romance than there used to be4 ,that1 ,i take it1 is the true reason why young men don't marry4 ,with certain classes and in certain places a primitive instinct of our race has weakened4 ,they say this weakening is accompanied in towns by an increase in sundry hateful and degrading vices4 ,i don't know if that is so2 but at least one would expect it4 ,any enfeeblement of the normal and natural instinct of virility would show itself first in morbid aberrations4 ,on that ,i say nothing4 ,i only say this--that ,i think the present crisis in the ,english marriage market is due1 not to clubs or the comfort of bachelor quarters1 but to the cumulative effect of nervous over-excitement4 ,,xv4 ,,eye ,,versus ,,ear4 ,it is admitted on all hands by this time1 ,i suppose1 that the best way of learning is by eye1 not by ear4 ,therefore the authorities that prescribe for us our education among all classes have decided that we shall learn by ear1 not by eye4 ,which is just what one might expect from a vested interest4 ,of course this superiority of sight over hearing is pre-eminently true of natural science--that is to say1 of nine-tenths among the subjects worth learning by humanity4 ,the only real way to learn geology1 for example1 is not to mug it up in a printed text-book1 but to go into the field with a geologist's hammer4 ,the only real way to learn zoology and botany is not by reading a volume of natural history1 but by collecting1 dissecting1 observing1 preserving1 and comparing specimens4 ,therefore1 of course1 natural science has never been a favourite study in the eyes of school-masters1 who prefer those subjects which can be taught in a room to a row of boys on a bench1 and who care a great deal less than nothing for any subject which isn't good to examine in4 ,educational value and importance in after life have been sacrificed to the teacher's ease and convenience1 or to the readiness with which the pupil's progress can be tested on paper4 ,not what is best to learn1 but what is least trouble to teach in great squads to boys1 forms the staple of our modern ,english education4 ,they call it education1 ,i observe in the papers1 and ,i suppose we must fall in with that whim of the profession4 ,but even the subjects which belong by rights to the ear can nevertheless be taught by the eye more readily4 ,everybody knows how much easier it is to get up the history and geography of a country when you are actually in it than when you are merely reading about it4 ,it lives and moves before you4 ,the places1 the persons1 the monuments1 the events1 all become real to you4 ,each illustrates each1 and each tends to impress the other on the memory4 ,sight burns them into the brain without conscious effort4 ,you can learn more of ,egypt and of ,egyptian history1 culture1 hieroglyphics1 and language in a few short weeks at ,luxor or ,sakkarah than in a year at the ,louvre and the ,british ,museum4 ,the ,tombs of the ,kings are worth many papyri4 ,the mere sight of the temples and obelisks and monuments and inscriptions1 in the places where their makers originally erected them1 gives a sense of reality and interest to them all that no amount of study under alien conditions can possibly equal4 ,we have all of us felt that the only place to observe ,flemish art to the greatest advantage is at ,ghent and ,bruges and ,brussels and ,antwerp2 just as the only place to learn ,florentine art as it really was is at the ,uffizi and the ,bargello4 ,these things being so1 the authorities who have charge of our public education1 primary1 secondary1 and tertiary1 have decided in their wisdom--to do and compel the exact contrary4 ,object-lessons and the visible being admittedly preferable to rote-lessons and the audible1 they have prescribed that our education1 so called1 shall be mainly an education not in things and properties1 but in books and reading4 ,they have settled that it shall deal almost entirely and exclusively with language and with languages2 that words1 not objects1 shall be the facts it impresses on the minds of the pupils4 ,in our primary schools they have insisted upon nothing but reading and writing1 with just a smattering of arithmetic by way of science4 ,in our secondary schools they have insisted upon nothing but ,greek and ,latin1 with about an equal leaven of algebra and geometry4 ,this medival fare 7,i am delighted that ,i can thus agree for once with ,professor ,ray ,lankester7 they have thrust down the throats of all the world indiscriminately2 so much so that nowadays people seem hardly able at last to conceive of any other than a linguistic education as possible4 ,you will hear many good folk who talk with contempt of ,greek and ,latin2 but when you come to inquire what new mental pabulum they would substitute for those quaint and grotesque survivals of the ,dark ,ages1 you find what they want instead is--modern languages4 ,the idea that language of any sort forms no necessary element in a liberal education has never even occurred to them4 ,they take it for granted that when you leave off feeding boys on straw and oats you must supply them instead with hay and sawdust4 ,not that ,i rage against ,greek and ,latin as such4 ,it is well we should have many specialists among us who understand them1 just as it is well we should have specialists in ,anglo-,saxon and ,sanskrit4 ,i merely mean that they are not the sum and substance of educational method4 ,they are at best but two languages of considerable importance to the student of purely human evolution4 ,furthermore1 even these comparatively useless linguistic subjects could themselves be taught far better by sight than by hearing4 ,a week at ,rome would give your average boy a much clearer idea of the relations of the ,capitol with the ,palatine than all the pretty maps in ,dr4 ,william ,smith's ,smaller ,classical ,dictionary4 ,it would give him also a sense of the reality of the ,latin language and the ,latin literature1 which he could never pick up out of a dog-eared ,livy or a thumb-marked neid4 ,you have only to look across from the top of the ,janiculum1 towards the white houses of ,frascati1 to learn a vast deal more about the ,alban hills and the site of ,tusculum than ever you could mug up from all the geography books in the ,british ,museum4 ,the way to learn every subject on earth1 even book-lore included1 is not out of books alone1 but by actual observation4 ,and yet it is impossible for any one among us to do otherwise than acquiesce in this vicious circle4 ,why8 ,just because no man can dissociate himself outright from the social organism of which he forms a component member4 ,he can no more do so than the eye can dissociate itself from the heart and lungs1 or than the legs can shake themselves free from the head and stomach4 ,we have all to learn1 and to let our boys learn1 what authority decides for us4 ,we can't give them a better education than the average1 even if we know what it is and desire to impart it1 because the better education1 though abstractly more valuable1 is now and here the inlet to nothing4 ,every door is barred with examinations1 and opens but to the golden key of the crammer4 ,not what is of most real use and importance in life1 but what pays best in examination1 is the test of desirability4 ,we are the victims of a system2 and our only hope of redress is not by sporadic individual action but by concerted rebellion4 ,we must cry out against the abuse till at last we are heard by dint of our much speaking4 ,in a world so complex and so highly organised as ours1 the individual can only do anything in the long run by influencing the mass--by securing the co-operation of many among his fellows4 ,meanwhile1 ,i believe it is gradually becoming the fact that our girls1 who till lately were so very ill-taught1 are beginning to know more of what is really worth knowing than their public-school-bred brothers4 ,for the public school still goes on with the system of teaching it has derived direct from the thirteenth century2 while the girls' schools1 having started fair and fresh1 are beginning to assimilate certain newer ideas belonging to the seventeenth and even the eighteenth4 ,in time they may conceivably come down to the more elementary notions of the present generation4 ,less hampered by professions and examinations than the boys1 the girls are beginning to know something now1 not indeed of the universe in which they live1 its laws and its properties1 but of literature and history1 and the principal facts about human development4 ,yet all the time1 the boys go on as ever with ,musa1 ,mus1 like so many parrots1 and are turned out at last1 in nine cases out of ten1 with just enough smattering of ,greek and ,latin grammar to have acquired a life-long distaste for ,horace and an inconquerable incapacity for understanding schylus4 ,one year in ,italy with their eyes open would be worth more than three at ,oxford2 and six months in the fields with a platyscopic lens would teach them strange things about the world around them that all the long terms at ,harrow and ,winchester have failed to discover to them4 ,but that would involve some trouble to the teacher4 ,what a misfortune it is that we should thus be compelled to let our boys' schooling interfere with their education6 ,,xvi4 ,,the ,,political ,,pupa4 ,i have picked up on the moor the chrysalis of a common ,english butterfly4 ,as ,i sit on the heather and turn it over attentively1 while it wriggles in my hands1 ,i can't help thinking how closely it resembles the present condition of our ,british commonwealth4 ,it is a platitude1 indeed1 to say that this is an age of transition4 ,but it would be truer and more graphic perhaps to put it that this is an age in which ,england1 and for the matter of that every other ,european country as well1 is passing through something like the chrysalis stage in its evolution4 ,but1 first of all1 do you clearly understand what a chrysalis is driving at8 ,it means more than it seems2 the change that goes on within that impassive case is a great deal more profound than most people imagine4 ,when the caterpillar is just ready to turn into a butterfly it lies by for a while1 full of internal commotion1 and feels all its organs slowly melting one by one into a sort of indistinguishable protoplasmic pulp2 chaos precedes the definite re-establishment of a fresh form of order4 ,limbs and parts and nervous system all disappear for a time1 and then gradually grow up again in new and altered types4 ,the caterpillar1 if it philosophised on its own state at all 7which seems to be very little the habit of well-conducted caterpillars1 as of well-conducted young ladies71 might easily be excused for forming just at first the melancholy impression that a general dissolution was coming over it piecemeal4 ,it must begin by feeling legs and eyes and nervous centres melt away by degrees into a common indistinguishable organic pulp1 out of which the new organs only slowly form themselves in obedience to the law of some internal impulse4 ,but when the process is all over1 and--hi1 presto6--the butterfly emerges at last from the chrysalis condition1 what does it find but that instead of having lost everything it has new and stronger legs in place of the old and feeble ones2 it has nerves and brain more developed than before2 it has wings for flight instead of mere creeping little feet to crawl with8 ,what seemed like chaos was really nothing more than the necessary kneading up of all component parts into a plastic condition which precedes every fresh departure in evolution4 ,the old must fade before the new can replace it4 ,now ,i am not going to work this perhaps somewhat fanciful analogy to death1 or pretend it is anything more than a convenient metaphor4 ,still1 taken as such1 it is not without its luminosity4 ,for a metaphor1 by supplying us with a picturable representation1 often enables us really to get at the hang of the thing a vast deal better than the most solemn argument4 ,and ,i fancy communities sometimes pass through just such a chrysalis stage1 when it seems to the timid and pessimistic in their midst as if every component element of the ,state 7but especially the one in which they themselves and their friends are particularly interested7 were rushing violently down a steep place to eternal perdition4 ,chaos appears to be swallowing up everything4 ,the natural relations of classes disappear4 ,faiths melt2 churches dissolve2 morals fade2 bonds fail2 a universal magma of emancipated opinion seems to take the place of old-established dogma4 ,the squires and the parsons of the period--call them scribes or augurs--wring their hands in despair1 and cry aloud that they don't know what the world is coming to4 ,but1 after all1 it is only the chrysalis stage of a new system4 ,the old social order must grow disjointed and chaotic before the new social order can begin to evolve from it4 ,the establishment of a plastic consistency in the mass is the condition precedent of the higher development4 ,not1 of course1 that this consideration will ever afford one grain of comfort to the squires and the parsons of each successive epoch2 for what they want is not the reasonable betterment of the whole social organism1 but the continuance of just this particular type of squiredom and parsonry4 ,that is what they mean by national welfare2 and any interference with it they criticise in all ages with the current equivalent for the familiar ,tory formula that the country is going to the devil4 ,sometimes these great social reconstructions of which ,i speak are forced upon communities by external factors interfering with their fixed internal order1 as happened when the influx of northern barbarians broke up the decaying and rotten organism of the ,roman ,empire4 ,sometimes1 again1 they occur from internal causes1 in an acute1 and so to speak1 inflammatory condition1 as at the ,french ,revolution4 ,but sometimes1 as in our own time and country1 they are slowly brought about by organic development1 so as really to resemble in all essential points the chrysalis type of evolution4 ,politically1 socially1 theologically1 ethically1 the old fixed beliefs seem at such periods to grow fluid or plastic4 ,new feelings and habits and aspirations take their place4 ,for a while a general chaos of conflicting opinions and nascent ideas is produced4 ,the mass for the moment seems formless and lawless4 ,then new order supervenes1 as the magma settles down and begins to crystallise2 till at last1 ,i'm afraid1 the resulting social organism becomes for the most part just as rigid1 just as definite1 just as dogmatic1 just as exacting1 as the one it has superseded4 ,the caterpillar has grown into a particular butterfly4 ,through just such a period of reconstruction ,europe in general and ,britain in particular are now in all likelihood beginning to pass4 ,and they will come out at the other end translated and transfigured4 ,laws and faiths and morals will all of them have altered4 ,there will be a new heaven and a new earth for the men and women of the new epoch4 ,strange that people should make such a fuss about a detail like ,home ,rule1 when the foundations of society are all becoming fluid4 ,don't flatter yourself for a moment that your particular little sect or your particular little dogma is going to survive the gentle cataclysm any more than my particular little sect or my particular little dogma4 ,all alike are doomed to inevitable reconstruction4 ,we can't put the ,constitution into the melting-pot1 said ,mr4 ,john ,morley1 if ,i recollect his words aright4 ,but at the very moment when he said it1 in my humble opinion1 the ,constitution was already well into the melting-pot1 and even beginning to simmer merrily4 ,federalism1 or something extremely like it1 may with great probability be the final outcome of that particular melting2 though anything else is perhaps just as probable1 and in any case the melting is general1 not special4 ,the one thing we can guess with tolerable certainty is that the melting-pot stage has begun to overtake us1 socially1 ethically1 politically1 ecclesiastically2 and that what will emerge from the pot at the end of it must depend at last upon the relative strength of those unknown quantities--the various formative elements4 ,being the most optimistic of pessimists1 however1 ,i will venture 7after this disclaimer of prophecy7 to prophesy one thing alone3 ',twill be a butterfly1 not a grub1 that comes out of our chrysalis4 ,beyond that1 ,i hold all prediction premature4 ,we may guess and we may hope1 but we can have no certainty4 ,save only the certainty that no element will outlive the revolution unchanged--not faiths1 nor classes1 nor domestic relations1 nor any other component factor of our complex civilisation4 ,all are becoming plastic in the organic plasm2 all are losing features in the common mass of the melting-pot4 ,for that reason1 ,i never trouble my head for a moment when people object to me that this1 that1 or the other petty point of detail in ,bellamy's ,utopia or ,william ,morris's ,utopia1 or my own little private and particular ,utopia1 is impossible1 or unrealisable1 or wicked1 or hateful4 ,for these1 after all1 are mere ,utopias2 their details are the outcome of individual wishes2 what will emerge must be1 not a ,utopia at all1 either yours or mine1 but a practical reality1 full of shifts and compromises most unphilosophical and illogical--a practical reality distasteful in many ways to all us ,utopia-mongers4 ,the ,millennium by return of post is no more realisable to-day than yesterday4 ,the greatest of revolutions can only produce that unsatisfactory result1 a new human organisation4 ,yet1 it is something1 after all1 to believe at least that the grub will emerge into a full-fledged butterfly4 ,not1 perhaps1 quite as glossy in the wings as we could wish2 but a butterfly all the same1 not a crawling caterpillar4 ,,xvii4 ,,on ,,the ,,casino ,,terrace4 ,i have always regarded ,monte ,carlo as an ,influence for ,good4 ,it helps to keep so many young men off the ,stock ,exchange4 ,let me guard against an obvious but unjust suspicion4 ,these remarks are not uttered under the exhilarating effect of winning at the tables4 ,quite the contrary4 ,it is the ,bank that has broken the ,man to-day at ,monte ,carlo4 ,they are rather due to the chastening and thought-compelling influence of persistent loss1 not altogether unbalanced by a well-cooked lunch at perhaps the best restaurant in any town of ,europe4 ,i have lost my little pile4 ,the eight five-franc pieces which ,i annually devote out of my scanty store to the tutelary god of roulette have been snapped up1 one after another1 in breathless haste1 by the sphinx-like croupiers1 impassive priests of that rapacious deity1 and now ,i am sitting1 cleaned out1 by the edge of the terrace1 on a brilliant1 cloudless1 ,february afternoon1 looking across the zoned and belted bay towards the beautiful grey hills of ,rocca-bruna and the gleaming white spit of ,bordighera in the distance4 ',tis a modest tribute1 my poor little forty francs4 ,surely the veriest puritan1 the oiliest ,chadband of them all1 will allow a humble scribbler1 at so cheap a yearly rate1 to purchase wisdom1 not unmixed with tolerance1 at the gilded shrine of ,fors ,fortuna6 ,for what a pother1 after all1 the unwise of this world are wont to make about one stranded gambling-house1 in a remote corner of ,liguria6 ,if they were in earnest or sincere1 how small a matter they would think it6 ,of course1 when ,i say so1 hypocrisy holds up its hands in holy horror4 ,but that is the way with the purveyors of mint1 cumin1 and anise2 they raise a mighty hubbub over some unimportant detail--in order to feel their consciences clear when business compels them to rob the widow and the orphan4 ,in reality1 though ,monte ,carlo is bad enough in its way--do ,i not pay it unwilling tribute myself twice a year out of the narrow resources of ,the ,garret1 ,grub ,street8--it is but a skin-deep surface symptom of a profound disease which attacks the heart and core in ,london and ,paris4 ,compared with ,panama1 ,argentines1 ,british ,south ,africans1 and ,liberators1 ,monte ,carlo is a mole on the left ankle4 ,the ,devil's advocate6 you say4 ,well1 well1 so be it4 ,the fact is1 the supposed moral objection to gambling as such is a purely commercial objection of a commercial nation2 and the reason so much importance is attached to it in certain places is because at that particular vice men are likely to lose their money4 ,it is largely a fetish1 like the sinfulness of cards1 of dice1 of billiards4 ,moreover1 the objection is only to the kind of gambling4 ,there is another kind1 less open1 at which you stand a better chance to win yourself1 while other parties stand a better chance to lose2 and that kind1 which is played in great gambling-houses known as the ,stock ,exchange and the ,bourse1 is considered1 morally speaking1 as quite innocuous4 ,large fortunes are made at this other sort of gambling1 which1 of course1 sanctifies and almost canonises it4 ,indeed1 if you will note1 you will find not only that the objection to gambling pure and simple is commonest in the most commercial countries1 but also that even there it is commonest among the most commercial classes4 ,the landed aristocracy1 the military1 and the labouring men have no objection to betting2 nor have the ,neapolitan lazzaroni1 the ,chinese coolies4 ,it is the respectable ,english counting-house that discourages the vice1 especially among the clerks1 who are likely to make the till or the cheque-book rectify the little failures of their flutter on the ,derby4 ,observe how artificial is the whole mild out-cry3 how absolutely it partakes of the nature of damning the sins you have no mind to6 ,here1 on the terrace where ,i sit1 and where ladies in needlessly costly robes are promenading up and down to exhibit their superfluous wealth ostentatiously to one another1 my ear is continuously assailed by the constant ping1 ping1 ping of the pigeon-shooting1 and my peace disturbed by the flapping death-agonies of those miserable victims4 ,yet how many times have you heard the tables at ,monte ,carlo denounced to once or never that you have heard a word said of the poor mangled pigeons8 ,and why8 ,because nobody loses much money at pigeon-matches4 ,that is legitimate sport1 about as good and as bad as pheasant or partridge shooting--no better1 no worse1 in spite of artificial distinctions2 and nobody 7except the pigeons7 has any interest in denouncing it4 ,legend has it at ,monte ,carlo1 indeed1 that when the proprietors of the ,casino wished to take measures pour attirer les ,anglais they held counsel with the wise men whether it was best to establish and endow an ,english church or a pigeon-shooting tournament4 ,and the church was in a minority4 ,since then1 ,i have heard more than one ,anglican ,bishop speak evil of the tables1 but ,i have never heard one of them say a good word yet for the boxed and slaughtered pigeons4 ,let me take a more striking because a less hackneyed case--one that still fewer people would think of4 ,everybody who visits ,monte ,carlo gets there1 of course1 by the ,p4,l4,m4 ,if you know this coast at all you will know that ,p4,l4,m4 is the curt and universal abbreviation for the ,paris1 ,lyon1 ,mditerrane ,railway ,company--in all probability the most gigantic and wickedest monopoly on the face of this planet4 ,yet you never once heard a voice raised yet against the company as a company4 ,individual complaints get into the ,times1 of course1 about the crowding of the train de luxe1 the breach of faith as to places1 and the discomforts of the journey2 but never a glimmering conception seems to flit across the popular mind that here is a ,colossal ,wrong1 compared to which ,monte ,carlo is but as a flea-bite to the ,asiatic cholera4 ,this chartered abuse connects the three biggest towns in ,france--,paris1 ,lyon1 ,marseilles--and is absolutely without competitors4 ,it can do as it likes2 and it does it1 regardless--,i say regardless1 without qualification1 because the ,p4,l4,m4 regards nobody and nothing4 ,yet one hears of no righteous indignation1 no uprising of the people in their angry thousands1 no moral recognition of the monopoly as a ,wicked ,thing1 to be fought tooth and nail1 without quarter given4 ,it probably causes a greater aggregate of human misery in a week than ,monte ,carlo in a century4 ,besides1 the one is compulsory1 the other optional4 ,you needn't risk a louis on the tables unless you choose1 but1 like it or lump it1 if you're bound for ,nice or ,cannes or ,mentone1 you must open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what ,p4,l4,m4 will send you4 ,our own railways1 indeed1 are by no means free from blame at the hands of the ,democracy3 the ,south-,eastern has not earned the eternal gratitude of its season-ticket holders2 the children of the ,great ,western do not rise up and call it blessed4 7,except1 indeed1 in the most uncomplimentary sense of blessing47 ,but the ,p4,l4,m4 goes much further than these2 and ,i have always held that the one solid argument for eternal punishment consists in the improbability that its ,board of ,directors will be permitted to go scot-free for ever after all their iniquities4 ,i am not wholly joking4 ,i mean the best part of it4 ,great monopolies that abuse their trust are far more dangerous enemies of public morals than an honest gambling-house at every corner4 ,monte ,carlo as it stands is just a concentrated embodiment of all the evils of our anti-social system1 and the tables are by far the least serious among them4 ,it is an ,influence for ,good1 because it mirrors our own world in all its naked1 all its over-draped hideousness4 ,there it rears its meretricious head1 that gaudy ,palace of ,sin1 appropriately decked in its ,haussmanesque architecture and its coquettish gardens1 attracting to itself all the idle1 all the vicious1 all the rich1 all the unworthy1 from every corner of ,europe and ,america4 ,but ,monte ,carlo didn't make them2 it only gathers to its bosom its own chosen children from the places where they are produced--from ,london1 ,paris1 ,brussels1 ,new ,york1 ,berlin1 ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,the vices of our organisation begot these over-rich folk1 begot their diamond-decked women1 and their clipped ,french poodles with gold bangles spanning their aristocratic legs4 ,these are the spawn of land-owning1 of capitalism1 of military domination1 of ,high ,finance1 of all the social ills that flesh is heir to4 ,i feel as ,i pace the terrace in the broad ,mediterranean sunshine1 that ,i am here in the midst of the very best society ,europe affords4 ,that is to say1 the very worst4 ,the dukes and the money-lenders1 the ,jay ,goulds and the ,reinachs4 ,the idlest1 the cruellest3 the hereditary drones1 the successful blood-suckers4 ,but to find fault with them only for trying to win one another's ill-gotten gold at a fair and open game of trente-et-quarante1 with the odds against them1 and then to say nothing about the way they came by it1 is to make a needless fuss about a trifle of detail1 while overlooking the weightiest moral problems of humanity4 ,whoever allows red herrings like these to be trailed across the path of his moral consciousness1 to the detriment of the scent which should lead him straight on to the lairs of gigantic evils1 deserves little credit either for conscience or sagacity4 ,my son1 be wise4 ,strike at the root of the evil4 ,let ,monte ,carlo go1 but keep a stern eye on ,london ground-rents4 ,,xviii4 ,,the ,,celtic ,,fringe4 ,we ,celts henceforth will rule the roost in ,britain4 ,what is that you mutter8 ,a very inopportune moment to proclaim the fact4 ,well1 no1 ,i don't think so4 ,and ,i'm sorry to hear you say it1 for if there is a quality on which ,i plume myself1 it's the delicate tact that makes me refrain from irritating the susceptibilities of the sensitive ,saxon4 ,see how polite ,i am to him6 ,i call him sensitive4 ,but1 opportune or inopportune1 ,lord ,salisbury says we are a ,celtic fringe4 ,i beg to retort1 we are the ,british people4 ,conquered races1 say my friends4 ,well1 grant it for a moment4 ,but in civilised societies1 conquerors have1 sooner or later1 to amalgamate with the conquered4 ,and where the vanquished are more numerous1 they absorb the victors instead of being absorbed by them4 ,that is the ,nemesis of conquest4 ,rome annexed ,etruria2 and ,etruscan ,mcenas1 ,etruscan ,sejanus organised and consolidated the ,roman ,empire4 ,rome annexed ,italy2 and the ,jus ,italicum grew at last to be the full ,roman franchise4 ,rome annexed the civilised world2 and the provinces under ,csar blotted out the ,senate4 ,britain is passing now through the self-same stage4 ,one inevitable result of the widening of the electorate has been the transfer of power from the ,teutonic to the ,celtic half of ,britain4 ,i repeat1 we are no longer a ,celtic fringe3 at the polls1 in ,parliament1 we are the ,british people4 ,lord ,salisbury may fail to perceive that fact1 or1 as ,i hold more probable1 may affect to ignore it4 ,what will such tactics avail8 ,the ostrich is not usually counted among men as a perfect model of political wisdom4 ,and are we1 after all1 the conquered peoples8 ,meseems1 ,i doubt it4 ,they say we ,celts dearly love a paradox--which is perhaps only the sensible ,saxon way of envisaging the fact that we catch at new truths somewhat quicker than other people4 ,at any rate1 'tis a pet little paradox of my own that we have never been conquered1 and that to our unconquered state we owe in the main our ,radicalism1 our ,socialism1 our ingrained love of political freedom4 ,we are tribal not feudal2 we think the folk more important than his lordship4 ,the ,saxon of the south-east is the conquered man3 he has felt on his neck for generations the heel of feudalism4 ,he is slavish2 he is snobbish2 he dearly loves a lord4 ,he shouts himself hoarse for his ,beaconsfield or his ,salisbury4 ,till lately1 in his rural avatar1 he sang but one song-- ,god bless the squire and his relations1 ,and keep us in our proper stations4 ,trite1 isn't it8 but so is the ,saxon intelligence4 ,seriously--for at times it is well to be serious--,south-,eastern ,england1 the ,england of the plains1 has been conquered and enslaved in a dozen ages by each fresh invader4 ,before the dawn of history1 ,heaven knows what shadowy ,belg and ,iceni enslaved it4 ,but historical time will serve our purpose4 ,the ,roman enslaved it1 but left ,caledonia and ,hibernia free1 the ,cambrian1 the ,silurian1 the ,cornishman half-subjugated4 ,the ,saxon and ,anglian enslaved the east1 but scarcely crossed over the watershed of the western ocean4 ,the ,dane1 in turn1 enslaved the ,saxon in ,east ,anglia and ,yorkshire4 ,the ,norman ground all down to a common servitude between the upper and nether millstones of the feudal system--the king and the nobleman4 ,at the end of it all1 ,teutonic ,england was reduced to a patient condition of contented serfdom3 it had accommodated itself to its environment3 no wish was left in it for the assertion of its freedom4 ,to this day1 the south-east1 save where leavened and permeated by ,celtic influences1 hugs its chains and loves them4 ,it produces the strange portent of the ,conservative working-man1 who yearns to be led by ,lord ,randolph ,churchill4 ,with the ,north and the ,west1 things go wholly otherwise4 ,even ,cornwall1 the earliest ,celtic kingdom to be absorbed1 was rather absorbed than conquered4 ,i won't go into the history of the ,west ,welsh of ,somerset1 ,devon1 and ,cornwall at full length1 because it would take ten pages to explain it2 and ,i know that readers are too profoundly interested in the ,shocking ,murder in the ,borough ,road to devote half-an-hour to the origin and evolution of their own community4 ,it must suffice to say that the ,devonian and ,cornubian ,welsh coalesced with the ,west ,saxon for resistance to their common enemy the ,dane1 and that the ,west ,saxon kingdom was made supreme in ,britain by the founder of the ,english monarchy--one ,dunstan1 a monk from the ,west ,welsh ,abbey of ,glastonbury4 ,wales proper1 overrun piecemeal by ,norman filibusterers1 was roughly annexed by the ,plantagenet kings2 but it was only pacified under the ,welsh ,tudors1 and was never at any time thoroughly feudalised4 ,glendower's rebellion1 ,richmond's rebellion1 the ,wesleyan revolt1 the ,rebecca riots1 the tithe war1 are all continuous parts of the ceaseless reaction of gallant little ,wales against ,teutonic aggression4 ,an alien ,church still disturbs the ,principality4 ,the ,lake ,district and ,ayrshire--,celtic ,cumbria and ,strathclyde--only accepted by degrees the supremacy of the ,kings of ,england and ,scotland4 ,the brother of a ,scotch ,king was ,prince of ,cumbria1 as the elder son of an ,english ,king was ,prince of ,wales4 ,indeed1 ,david of ,cumbria1 who became ,david ,i4 of ,scotland1 was the real consolidator of the ,scotch kingdom4 ,cumbria was no more conquered by the ,saxon ,lothians than ,scotland was conquered by the accession of ,james ,i4 or by the ,act of ,union4 ,that means absorption1 conciliation1 a certain degree of tribal independence4 ,for ,ireland1 we know that the mere ,irish were never subjugated at all till the days of ,henry ,,vii42 that they had to be reconquered by ,cromwell and by ,william of ,orange2 that they rebelled more or less throughout the eighteenth century2 and that they have been thorns in the side of ,tory ,england through the whole of the nineteenth4 ,as for the ,highlands1 they held out against the ,stuarts till ,england had rejected that impossible dynasty2 and then they rallied round the ,stuarts as the enemies of the ,saxon4 ,general ,wade's roads and the forts in the ,great ,glen1 aided by a few trifles of ,glencoe massacres1 kept them quiet for a moment4 ,but it was only for a moment4 ,the ,north is once more in open revolt4 ,dr4 ,clark and the crofters are its mode of expressing itself4 ,nor is that all4 ,the ,celtic ideas have remained unaltered4 ,of course1 ,i am not silly enough to believe there is any such thing as a ,celtic race4 ,i use the word merely as a convenient label for the league of the unconquered peoples in ,britain4 ,ireland alone contains half-a-dozen races2 and none of them appear to have anything in common with the ,pict of ,aberdeenshire or the ,west-,welsh of ,cornwall4 ,all ,i mean when ,i speak of ,celtic ideas and ,celtic ideals is the ideas and ideals proper and common to unconquered races4 ,as compared with the feudalised and contented serf of ,south-,eastern ,england1 are not the ,irish peasant1 the ,scotch clansman1 the statesman of the dales1 the ,cornish miner1 free men every soul of them8 ,english landlordism1 imposed from without upon the crofter of ,skye or the rack-rented tenant of a ,connemara hillside1 has never crushed out the native feeling of a right to the soil1 the native resistance to an alien system4 ,the south-east1 ,i assert1 has been brutalised into acquiescent serfdom by a long course of feudalism2 the west and north still retain the instincts of freemen4 ,as long as ,south-,eastern ,england and the ,normanised or feudalised ,saxon lowlands of ,scotland contained all the wealth1 all the power1 and most of the population of ,britain1 the ,celtic ideals had no chance of realising themselves4 ,but the industrial revolution of the present century has turned us right-about-face1 has transferred the balance of power from the secondary strata to the primary strata in ,britain2 from the agricultural lowlands to the uplands of coal and iron1 the cotton factories1 the woollen trade4 ,great industrial cities have grown up in the ,celtic or semi-,celtic area--,glasgow1 ,liverpool1 ,manchester1 ,leeds1 ,bradford1 ,sheffield1 ,belfast1 ,aberdeen1 ,cardiff4 ,the ,celt--that is to say1 the mountaineer and the man of the untouched country--reproduces his kind much more rapidly than the ,teuton4 ,the ,highlander and the ,irishman swarm into ,glasgow2 the ,irishman and the ,welshman swarm into ,liverpool2 the west-countryman into ,bristol2 ,celts of all types into ,london1 ,southampton1 ,newport1 ,birmingham1 ,sheffield4 ,this eastward return-wave of ,celts upon the ,teuton has leavened the whole mass2 if you look at the leaders of ,radicalism in ,england you will find they bear1 almost without exception1 true ,celtic surnames4 ,chartists and ,socialists of the first generation were marshalled by men of ,cymric descent1 like ,ernest ,jones and ,robert ,owen1 or by pure-blooded ,irishmen like ,fergus ,o',connor4 ,it is not a mere accident that the ,london ,socialists of the present day should be led by ,welshmen like ,william ,morris1 or by the eloquent brogue of ,bernard ,shaw's audacious oratory4 ,we ,celts now lurk in every corner of ,britain2 we have permeated it with our ideas2 we have inspired it with our aspirations2 we have roused the ,celtic remnant in the south-east itself to a sense of their wrongs2 and we are marching to-day1 all abreast1 to the overthrow of feudalism4 ,if ,lord ,salisbury thinks we are a ,celtic fringe he is vastly mistaken4 ,but he doesn't really think so3 'tis a piece of his ponderous ,saxon humour4 ,talk of ,batavian grace1 indeed6 ,well1 the ,cecils came first from the fens of ,lincolnshire4 ,,xix4 ,,imagination ,,and ,,radicals4 ,conservatism1 ,i believe1 is mainly due to want of imagination4 ,in saying this1 ,i do not for a moment mean to deny the other and equally obvious truth that ,conservatism1 in the lump1 is a euphemism for selfishness4 ,but the two ideas have much in common4 ,selfish people are apt to be unimaginative3 unimaginative people are apt to be selfish4 ,clearly to realise the condition of the unfortunate is the beginning of philanthropy4 ,clearly to realise the rights of others is the beginning of justice4 ,put yourself in his place strikes the keynote of ethics4 ,stupid people can only see their own side of a question3 they cannot even imagine any other side possible4 ,so1 as a rule1 stupid people are ,conservative4 ,they cling to what they have2 they dread revision1 redistribution1 justice4 ,also1 if a man has imagination he is likely to be ,radical1 even though selfish2 while if he has no imagination he is likely to be ,conservative1 even though otherwise good and kind-hearted4 ,some men are ,conservative from defects of heart1 while some are ,conservative from defects of head4 ,conversely1 most imaginative people are ,radical2 for even a bad man may sometimes uphold the side of right because he has intelligence enough to understand that things might be better managed in the future for all than they are in the present4 ,but when ,i say that ,conservatism is mainly due to want of imagination1 ,i mean more than that4 ,most people are wholly unable to conceive in their own minds any state of things very different from the one they have been born and brought up in4 ,the picturing power is lacking4 ,they can conceive the past1 it is true1 more or less vaguely--because they have always heard things once were so1 and because the past is generally realisable still by the light of the relics it has bequeathed to the present4 ,but they can't at all conceive the future4 ,imagination fails them4 ,innumerable difficulties crop up for them in the way of every proposed improvement4 ,before there was any ,county ,council for ,london1 such people thought municipal government for the metropolis an insoluble problem4 ,now that ,home ,rule quivers trembling in the balance1 they think it would pass the wit of man to devise in the future a federal league for the component elements of the ,united ,kingdom2 in spite of the fact that the wit of man has already devised one for the ,states of the ,union1 for the ,provinces of the ,dominion1 for the component ,cantons of the ,swiss ,republic4 ,to the unimaginative mind difficulties everywhere seem almost insuperable4 ,it shrinks before trifles4 ,impossible6 said ,napoleon4 ,there is no such word in my dictionary6 ,he had been trained in the school of the ,french ,revolution--which was not carried out by unimaginative pettifoggers4 ,to people without imagination any change you propose seems at once impracticable4 ,they are ready to bring up endless objections to the mode of working it4 ,there would be this difficulty in the way1 and that difficulty1 and the other one4 ,you would think1 to hear them talk1 the world as it stands was absolutely perfect1 and moved without a hitch in all its bearings4 ,they don't see that every existing institution just bristles with difficulties--and that the difficulties are met or got over somehow4 ,often enough while they swallow the camel of existing abuses they strain at some gnat which they fancy they see flying in at the window of ,utopia or of the ,millennium4 ,if your reform were carried1 they say in effect1 we should1 doubtless1 get rid of such and such flagrant evils2 but the streets in ,november would be just as muddy as ever1 and slight inconvenience might be caused in certain improbable contingencies to the duke or the cotton-spinner1 the squire or the mine-owner4 ,they omit to note that much graver inconvenience is caused at present to the millions who are shut out from the fields and the sunshine1 who are sweated all day for a miserable wage1 or who are forced to pay fancy prices for fuel to gratify the rapacity of a handful of coal-grabbers4 ,lack of imagination makes people fail to see the evils that are2 makes them fail to realise the good that might be4 ,i often fancy to myself what such people would say if land had always been communal property1 and some one now proposed to hand it over absolutely to the dukes1 the squires1 the game-preservers1 and the coal-owners4 ',tis impossible1 they would exclaim2 the thing wouldn't be workable4 ,why1 a single landlord might own half ,westminster6 ,a single landlord might own all ,sutherlandshire6 ,the hypothetical ,duke of ,westminster might put bars to the streets2 he might impede locomotion2 he might refuse to let certain people to whom he objected take up their residence in any part of his territory2 he might prevent them from following their own trades or professions2 he might even descend to such petty tyranny as tabooing brass plates on the doors of houses4 ,and what would you do then8 ,the thing isn't possible4 ,the ,duke of ,sutherland1 again1 might shut up all ,sutherlandshire2 might turn whole vast tracts into grouse-moor or deer-forest2 might prevent harmless tourists from walking up the mountains4 ,and surely free ,britons would never submit to that4 ,the bare idea is ridiculous4 ,the squire of a rural parish might turn out the ,dissenters2 might refuse to let land for the erection of chapels2 might behave like a petty ,king ,augustus of ,scilly4 ,indeed1 there would be nothing to prevent an ,american alien from buying up square miles of purple heather in ,scotland1 and shutting the inhabitants of these ,british ,isles out of their own inheritance4 ,sites might be refused for needful public purposes2 fancy prices might be asked for pure cupidity4 ,speculators would job land for the sake of unearned increment2 towns would have to grow as landlords willed1 irrespective of the wants or convenience of the community4 ,theoretically1 ,i don't even see that ,lord ,rothschild mightn't buy up the whole area of ,middlesex1 and turn ,london into a ,golden ,house of ,nero4 ,your scheme can't be worked4 ,the anomalies are too obvious4 ,they are indeed4 ,yet ,i doubt whether the unimaginative would quite have foreseen them3 the things they foresee are less real and possible4 ,but they urge against every reform such objections as ,i have parodied2 and they urge them about matters of far less vital importance4 ,the existing system exists2 they know its abuses1 its checks and its counter-checks4 ,the system of the future does not yet exist2 and they can't imagine how its far slighter difficulties could ever be smoothed over4 ,they are not the least staggered by the appalling reality of the ,duke of ,westminster or the ,duke of ,sutherland2 not the least staggered by the sinister power of a conspiracy of coal-owners to paralyse a great nation with the horrors of a fuel famine4 ,but they are staggered by their bogey that ,state ownership of land might give rise to a certain amount of jobbery and corruption on the part of officials4 ,they think it better that the dukes and the squires should get all the rent than that the ,state should get most of it1 with the possibility of a percentage being corruptly embezzled by the functionaries who manage it4 ,this shows want of imagination4 ,it is as though one should say to one's clerk1 ,all your income shall be paid in future to the ,duke of ,westminster1 and not to yourself1 for his sole use and benefit2 because we1 your employers1 are afraid that if we give you your salary in person1 you may let some of it be stolen from you or badly invested4 ,how transparently absurd6 ,we want our income ourselves1 to spend as we please4 ,we would rather risk losing one per cent4 of it in bad investments than let all be swallowed up by the dukes and the landlords4 ,it is the same throughout4 ,want of imagination makes people exaggerate the difficulties and dangers of every new scheme1 because they can't picture constructively to themselves the details of its working4 ,men with great picturing power1 like ,shelley or ,robespierre1 are always very advanced ,radicals1 and potentially revolutionists4 ,the difficulty they see is not the difficulty of making the thing work1 but the difficulty of convincing less clear-headed people of its desirability and practicability4 ,a great many ,conservatives1 who are ,conservative from selfishness1 would be ,radicals if only they could feel for themselves that even their own petty interests and pleasures are not really menaced4 ,the squires and the dukes can't realise how much happier even they would be in a free1 a beautiful1 and a well-organised community4 ,imaginative minds can picture a world where everything is so ordered that life comes as a constant sthetic delight to everybody4 ,they know that that world could be realised to-morrow--if only all others could picture it to themselves as vividly as they do4 ,but they also know that it can only be attained in the end by long ages of struggle1 and by slow evolution of the essentially imaginative ethical faculty4 ,for right action depends most of all1 in the last resort1 upon a graphic conception of the feelings of others4 ,,xx4 ,,about ,,abroad4 ,the place known as ,abroad is not nearly so nice a country to live in as ,england4 ,the people who inhabit ,abroad are called ,foreigners4 ,they are in every way and at all times inferior to ,englishmen4 ,these ,post-,prandials used once to be provided with a sting in their tail1 like the common scorpion4 ,by way of change1 ,i turn them out now with a sting in their head1 like the common mosquito4 ,mosquitoes are much less dangerous than scorpions1 but they're a deal more irritating4 ,not that ,i am sanguine enough to expect ,i shall irritate ,englishmen4 ,your ,englishman is far too cock-sure of the natural superiority of ,britons to ,foreigners1 the natural superiority of ,england to ,abroad1 ever to be irritated by even the gentlest criticism4 ,he accepts it all with lordly indifference4 ,he brushes it aside as the elephant might brush aside the ineffective gadfly4 ,no proboscis can pierce that pachydermatous hide of his4 ,if you praise him to his face1 he accepts your praise as his obvious due1 with perfect composure and without the slightest elation4 ,if you blame him in aught1 he sets it down to your ignorance and mental inferiority4 ,you say to him1 ,oh1 ,englishman1 you are great2 you are wise2 you are rich beyond comparison4 ,you are noble2 you are generous2 you are the prince among nations4 ,he smiles a calm smile1 and thinks you a very sensible fellow4 ,but you add1 ,oh1 my lord1 if ,i may venture to say so1 there is a smudge on your nose1 which ,i make bold to attribute to the settlement of a black on your intelligent countenance4 ,he is not angry4 ,he is not even contemptuously amused4 ,he responds1 ,my friend1 you are wrong4 ,there is never a smudge on my immaculate face4 ,no blacks fly in ,london4 ,the sky is as clear there in ,november as in ,august4 ,all is pure and serene and beautiful4 ,you answer1 ,oh1 my lord1 ,i admit the force of your profound reasoning4 ,you light the gas at ten in the morning only to show all the world you can afford to burn it4 ,at that1 he gropes his way along ,pall ,mall to his club1 and tells the men he meets there how completely he silenced you4 ,and yet1 ,my ,lord ,elephant1 there is use in mosquitoes4 ,mr4 ,mattieu ,williams once discovered the final cause of fleas4 ,certain people1 said he1 cannot be induced to employ the harmless necessary tub4 ,for them1 ,providence designed the lively flea4 ,he compels them to scratch themselves4 ,by so doing they rouse the skin to action and get rid of impurities4 ,now1 this ,british use of the word ,abroad is a smudge on the face of the otherwise perfect ,englishman4 ,perchance a mosquito-bite may induce him to remove it with a little warm water and a cambric pocket-handkerchief4 ,to most ,englishmen1 the world divides itself naturally into two unequal and non-equivalent portions--,abroad and ,england4 ,of these two1 ,abroad is much the larger country2 but ,england1 though smaller1 is vastly more important4 ,abroad is inhabited by ,frenchmen and ,germans1 who speak their own foolish and chattering languages4 ,part of it is likewise pervaded by ,chinamen1 who wear pigtails2 and the outlying districts belong to the poor heathen1 chiefly interesting as a field of missionary enterprise1 and a possible market for ,manchester piece-goods4 ,we sometimes invest our money abroad1 but then we are likely to get it swallowed up in ,mexicans or ,egyptian ,unified4 ,if you ask most people what has become of ,tom1 they will answer at once with the specific information1 ,oh1 ,tom has gone ,abroad4 ,i have one stereotyped rejoinder to an answer like that4 ,what part of ,abroad1 please8 ,that usually stumps them4 ,abroad is ,abroad2 and like the gentleman who was asked in examination to name the minor prophets1 they decline to make invidious distinctions4 ,it is nothing to them whether he is tea-planting in the ,himalayas1 or sheep-farming in ,australia1 or orange-growing in ,florida1 or ranching in ,colorado4 ,if he is not in ,england1 why then he is elsewhere2 and elsewhere is ,abroad1 one and indivisible4 ,in short1 ,abroad answers in space to that well-known and definite date1 the ,olden ,time1 in chronology4 ,people will tell you1 ,foreigners do this2 ,foreigners do that2 ,foreigners smoke so much2 ,foreigners always take coffee for breakfast4 ,indeed1 ,i love to answer2 ,i've never observed it myself in ,central ,asia4 ',tis ,parson ,adams and the ,christian religion4 ,nine ,english people out of ten1 when they talk of ,abroad1 mean what they call the ,continent2 and when they talk of the ,continent1 they mean ,france1 ,germany1 ,switzerland1 ,italy2 in short1 the places most visited by ,englishmen when they consent now and again to go ,abroad for a holiday4 ,i don't like ,abroad1 a lady once said to me on her return from ,calais4 ,foreigners1 in like manner1 means ,frenchmen1 ,germans1 ,swiss1 ,italians4 ,in the country called ,abroad1 the most important parts are the parts nearest ,england2 of the people called ,foreigners1 the most important are those who dress like ,englishmen4 ,the dim black lands that lie below the horizon are hardly worth noticing4 ,would it surprise you to learn that most people live in ,asia8 ,would it surprise you to learn that most people are poor benighted heathen1 and that1 of the remainder1 most people are ,mahommedans1 and that of the ,christians1 who come next1 most people are ,roman ,catholics1 and that1 of the other ,christian sects1 most people belong to the ,greek ,church1 and that1 last of all1 we get ,protestants1 more particularly ,anglicans1 ,wesleyans1 ,baptists8 ,have you ever really realised the startling fact that ,england is an island off the coast of ,europe8 that ,europe is a peninsula at the end of ,asia8 that ,france1 ,germany1 ,italy1 are the fringe of ,russia8 ,have you ever really realised that the ,english-speaking race lives mostly in ,america8 that the country is vastly more populous than ,london8 that our class is the froth and the scum of society8 ,think these things out1 and try to measure them on the globe4 ,and when you speak of ,abroad1 do please specify what part of it4 ,abroad is not all alike4 ,there are differences between ,poland1 ,peru1 and ,palestine4 ,what is true of ,france is not true of ,fiji4 ,distinguish carefully between ,timbuctoo1 ,tobolsk1 and ,toledo4 ,it is not our insularity that makes us so insular4 ',tis a gift of the gods1 peculiar to ,englishmen4 ,the other inhabitants of these ,isles of ,britain are comparatively cosmopolitan4 ,the ,scotchman goes everywhere2 the world is his oyster4 ,ireland is an island still more remote than ,great ,britain2 but the ,irishman has never been so insular as the ,english4 ,i put that down in part to his ,catholicism3 his priests have been wheels in a world-wide system2 his relations have been with ,douai1 ,st4 ,omer1 and ,rome2 his bishops have gone pilgrimages and sat on ,vatican ,councils2 his kinsmen are the ,mac,mahons in ,france1 the ,o',donnels in ,spain1 the ,taafes in ,austria4 ,even in the days of the ,regency this was so3 look at ,lever and his heroes6 ,when ,england drank port1 ,county ,clare drank claret4 ,but ever since the famine1 ,ireland has expanded4 ,every ,irishman has cousins in ,canada1 in ,australia1 in ,new ,york1 in ,san ,francisco4 ,the ,empire is ,irish1 with the exception of ,india2 and ,india1 of course1 is a ,scotch dependency4 ,irishmen and ,scotchmen have no such feelings about ,abroad and its ,foreigners as ,londoners entertain4 ,but ,englishmen never quite get over the sense that everybody must needs divide the world into ,england and ,elsewhere4 ,to the end no ,englishman really grasps the fact that to ,frenchmen and ,germans he himself is a foreigner4 ,i have met ,john ,bulls who had passed years in ,italy1 but who spoke of the countrymen of ,csar and ,dante and ,leonardo and ,garibaldi with the contemptuous toleration one might feel towards a child or an ,andaman ,islander4 ,these ,italians could build ,giotto's campanile2 could paint the ,transfiguration2 could carve the living marble on the tombs of the ,medici2 could produce the ,vita ,nuova2 could beget ,galileo1 ,galvani1 ,beccaria2 but still--they were ,foreigners4 ,providence in its wisdom has decreed that they must live ,abroad--just as it has decreed that a comprehension of the decimal system and its own place in the world should be limitations eternally imposed upon the ,english intellect4 ,,xxi4 ,,why ,,england ,,is ,,beautiful4 ,as ,i strolled across the moor this afternoon towards ,waverley1 ,i saw ,jones was planting out that bare hillside of his with ,douglas pines and ,scotch firs and new strains of silver birches4 ,they will improve the landscape4 ,and ,i thought as ,i scanned them1 ,how curious that most people entirely overlook this constant betterment and beautifying of ,england6 ,you hear them talk much of the way bricks and mortar are invading the country2 you never hear anything of this slow and silent process of planting and developing which has made ,england into the prettiest and one of the most beautiful countries in ,europe4 ,what's that you say8 ,astonished to find ,i have a good word of any sort to put in for ,england6 ,why1 dear me1 how irrational you are6 ,i just love ,england4 ,can any man with eyes in his head and a soul for beauty do otherwise8 ,england and ,italy--there you have the two great glories of ,europe4 ,italy for towns1 for art1 for man's handicraft2 ,england for country1 for nature1 for green lanes and lush copses4 ,was it not one that loved ,italy well who sighed in ,italy-- ,oh1 to be in ,england now that ,april's there8 ,and who that loves ,italy1 and knows ,england1 too1 does not echo ,browning's wish when ,april comes round again on dusty ,tuscan hilltops8 ,at ,perugia1 last spring1 through weeks of tramontana1 how one yearned for the sight of yellow ,english primroses6 ,not love ,england1 indeed6 ,milton's ,england1 ,shelley's ,england2 the ,england of the skylark1 the dog-rose1 the honeysuckle6 ,not love ,england1 forsooth6 ,why1 ,i love every flower1 every blade of grass in it4 ,devonshire lane1 close-cropped down1 rich water-meadow1 bickering brooklet3 ah me1 how they tug at one's heartstrings in ,africa6 ,no son of the soil can love ,england as those love her very stones who have come from newer lands over sea to her ivy-clad church-towers1 her mouldering castles1 her immemorial elms1 the berries on her holly1 the may in her hedgerows4 ,are not all these bound up in our souls with each cherished line of ,shakespeare and ,wordsworth8 do they not rouse faint echoes of ,gray and ,goldsmith8 ,even before ,i ever set foot in ,england1 how ,i longed to behold my first cowslip1 my first foxglove6 ,and now1 ,i have wandered through the footpaths that run obliquely across ,english pastures1 picking meadowsweet and fritillaries1 for half a lifetime1 till ,i have learned by heart every leaf and every petal4 ,you think because ,i dislike one squalid village--,the ,wen1 stout ,english ,william ,cobbett delighted to call it--,i don't love ,england4 ,you think because ,i see some spots on the sun of the ,english character1 ,i don't love ,englishmen4 ,why1 how can any man who speaks the ,english tongue1 and boasts one drop of ,english blood in his veins1 not be proud of ,england8 ,england1 the mother of poets and thinkers2 ,england1 that gave us ,newton1 ,darwin1 ,spencer2 ,england1 that holds in her lap ,oxford1 ,salisbury1 ,durham2 ,england of daisy and heather and pine-wood6 ,are we hewn out of granite1 to be cold before ,england8 ,upon my soul1 your unseasonable interruption has almost made me forget what ,i was going to say2 it has made me grow warm1 and drop into poetry4 ,england1 ,i take it1 is certainly the prettiest country in ,europe4 ,it is almost the most beautiful4 ,i say almost1 because ,i bethink me of ,norway and ,switzerland4 ,i say country1 because ,i bethink me of ,rome1 ,venice1 ,florence4 ,but1 taking it as country1 and as country alone1 nothing else approaches it4 ,have you ever thought why8 ,man made the town1 says the proverb1 and ,god made the country4 ,not so in ,england4 ,there1 man made the country1 and beautified it exceedingly4 ,in itself1 the land of south-eastern ,england is absolutely the same as the land of ,northern ,france--that hideous tract about ,boulogne and ,amiens which we traverse in silence every time we run across by ,calais to ,paris4 ,chalk and clay and sandstone stretch continuously under sea from ,kent and ,sussex to ,flanders and ,picardy4 ,the ,channel burst through1 and made the ,straits of ,dover2 but the land on either side was and still is geologically and physically identical4 ,what has made the difference8 ,man1 the planter and gardener4 ,england is beautiful by copse and hedgerow1 by pine-clad ridge and willow-covered hollow1 by meadows interspersed with great spreading oaks1 by pastures where drowsy sheep1 deep-fleeced and ruddy-stained1 huddle under the shade of ancestral beech-trees4 ,its loveliness is human4 ,in itself1 ,i believe1 the actual contour of ,england cannot once have been much better than the contour of northern ,france--though nowadays it is hard indeed to realise it4 ,judicious planting1 and a constant eye to picturesque effect in scenery1 have made ,england what she is--the garden of ,europe4 ,of course there are parts of the country which owed1 and still owe1 their beauty to their wildness--,dartmoor1 ,exmoor1 the ,west ,riding of ,yorkshire1 the ,surrey hills1 the ,peak in ,derbyshire4 ,yet even these depend more than you would believe1 when you take them in detail1 on the art of the forester4 ,the view from ,leith ,hill embraces ,john ,evelyn's woods at ,wotton3 the larches that cover one ,jura-like gorge were set there well within your and my memory4 ,but elsewhere in ,england the hand of man has done absolutely everything4 ,the ,american1 when he first visits ,england1 is charmed on his way up from ,liverpool to ,london by the exquisite air of antique cultivation and soft rural beauty4 ,the very sward is moss-like4 ,thoroughly wild country1 indeed1 unless bold and mountainous1 does not often please one4 ,it is apt to be bare1 unattractive1 and desolate4 ,witness the ,veldt1 the ,steppes1 the prairies4 ,you may go through miles and miles of the ,states and ,canada1 where the wildness for the most part rather repels than delights you4 ,i do not say everywhere2 in places the wilderness will blossom like a rose2 boggy margins of lakes1 fallen trunks in the forest overgrown with wild flowers1 make scenes unattainable in our civilised ,england4 ,even our roughest scenery is comparatively man-made3 our heaths are game preserves2 our woodlands are thinned of superfluous underbrush2 our moors are relieved by deliberate plantations4 ,but ,england in her own way is unique and unrivalled4 ,such parks1 such greensward1 such grassy lawns1 such wooded tilth1 are wholly unknown elsewhere4 ,compare the blank fields and long poplar-fringed high roads of central ,france with our ,devon or our ,warwickshire1 and you get at once a just measure of the vast1 the unspeakable difference4 ,and man has done it all4 ,alone he did it4 ,often as ,i take my walks abroad--and when ,i say abroad ,i mean in ,england--,i see men at work dotting about exotics of variegated foliage on some barren hillside1 and ,i say to myself1 ,there1 before my eyes1 goes on the beautifying of ,england4 ,thirty years ago1 the ,north ,downs near ,dorking were one bare stretch of white chalky sheep-walk2 half of them still remain so2 the other half has been planted irregularly with copses and spinneys1 which serve to throw up and enhance the beauty of the unaltered intervals4 ,beech and larch in autumn tints set off smooth patches of grass and juniper4 ,within the last few years1 the downs about ,leatherhead have been similarly diversified4 ,much of the loveliness of rural ,england is due1 one must frankly confess1 to the big landlords4 ,though the great houses love us not1 we must allow at least that the great houses have cared for the trees in the hedge-rows1 and for the timber in the meadows1 as well as for the covert that sheltered their pheasants1 their foxes1 and their gamekeepers4 ,but almost as much of ,england's charm is due to individual small owners or occupiers4 ',tis they who have planted the grounds about villa or cottage2 they who have stocked the sweet old gardens of yew and box1 of hollyhock and peony2 they who have given us the careless rustic grace of the ,english village4 ,still1 one way or another1 man has done it all1 whether in grange or in manor-house1 in palatial estate or in labourer's holding4 ,look at the ,french or ,belgian hamlet by the side of the ,english one2 look at the ,french or ,belgian farm by the side of our ,english wealth in wooded glen or sheltered homestead4 ,bricks and mortar are not covering the whole of ,england4 ,that is only true of the squalid purlieus and outliers of ,london1 whither ,londoners gravitate by mutual attraction4 ,if you will go and live in a dingy suburb1 you can't reasonably complain that all the world's suburban4 ,being the most cheerful of pessimists1 a dweller in the country all the days of my life1 ,i have no hesitation in expressing my profound conviction that within my memory more has been done to beautify than to uglify ,england4 ,only1 the beautification has been quiet and unobtrusive1 while the uglification has been obvious and concentrated4 ,it takes half a year to jerry-build a dingy street1 but it takes a decade for newly-planted trees to give the woodland air by imperceptible stages to a stretch of country4 ,,xxii4 ,,anent ,,art ,,production4 ,yesterday1 at ,bordighera1 ,i strolled up the hills behind the town to ,sasso4 ,it is a queer little cluster of gleaming white-washed houses that top the crest of a steep ridge2 and1 like many other ,italian villages1 it makes a brave show from a distance1 though within it is full of evil smells and all uncleanness4 ,but ,i found it had a church--a picturesquely ugly and dilapidated church2 and without and within1 this church was decorated by inglorious hands with very nave and rudimentary frescoes4 ,the ,four ,evangelists were there1 in flowing blue robes2 and the ,four ,greater ,prophets1 with long white beards2 and the ,madonna1 appearing in most wooden clouds2 and the ,patron ,saint tricked out for his ,festa in gorgeous holiday episcopal vestments4 ,that was all--just the common everyday ,italian country church that everybody has seen turned out to pattern with manufacturing regularity a hundred times over6 ,yet1 as ,i sat among the olive-terraces looking down the steep slope into the ,borghetto valley1 and across the gorge to the green pines on the ,cima1 it set me thinking4 ',tis a bad habit one falls into when one has nothing better to turn one's mind to4 ,we ,english1 coming to ,italy with our ideas fully formed about everything on heaven and earth1 naturally say to ourselves1 ,great heart alive1 what sadly degraded frescoes6 ,to think the art of ,raphael and ,andrea del ,sarto should degenerate even here1 in their own land1 to such a childish level6 ,but we are wrong1 for all that4 ,it is ,raphael and ,andrea who rose1 not my poor nameless ,sasso artists who sank and degenerated4 ,italy was capable of producing her great painters in her own great day1 just because in thousands of such ,italian villages there were work-a-day artisans in form and colour capable of turning out such ridiculous daubs as those that decorate this tawdry church on the ,ligurian hilltop4 ,we ,english1 in short1 think of it all the wrong way uppermost4 ,we think of it topsy-turvy1 beginning at the end1 while evolution invariably begins at the beginning4 ,the ,raphaels and ,andreas1 to put it in brief1 were the final flower and fullest outcome of whole races of church decorators in infantile fresco4 ,everywhere you go in ,italy1 this truth is forced upon your attention even to the present day4 ,art here is no exotic4 ,it smacks of the soil2 it springs spontaneous1 like a weed2 it burgeons of itself out of the heart of the people4 ,not high art1 understand well2 not the art of ,burne-,jones and ,whistler and ,puvis de ,chavannes and ,sar ,peladan4 ,commonplace everyday art1 that is a trade and a handicraft1 like the joiner's or the shoemaker's4 ,look up at your ceiling2 it's overrun with festoons of crude red and blue flowers1 or it's covered with cupids and graces1 or it bristles with arabesques and unmeaning phantasies4 ,every wall is painted2 every grotto decorated4 ,sham landscapes1 sham loggias1 sham parapets are everywhere4 ,the sham windows themselves are provided1 not only with sham blinds and sham curtains1 but even with sham coquettes making sham eyes or waving sham handkerchiefs at passers-by below them4 ,open-air fresco painting is still a living art1 an art practised by hundreds and thousands of craftsmen1 an art as alive as cookery or weaving4 ,the ,italian decorates everything2 his pottery1 his house1 his church1 his walls1 his palaces4 ,and the only difference he feels between the various cases is1 that in some of them a higher type of art is demanded by wealth and skill than in the others4 ,no wonder1 therefore1 he blossomed out at last into ,michael ,angelo's frescoes in the ,sistine ,chapel6 ,to us ,english1 on the contrary1 high art is something exotic1 separate1 alone1 sui generis4 ,we never think of the plaster star in the middle of our ceiling as belonging even to the same range of ideas as1 say1 the frescoes in the ,houses of ,parliament4 ,a nation in such a condition as that is never truly artistic4 ,the artist with us1 even now1 is an exceptional product4 ,art for a long time in ,england had nothing at all to do with the life of the people4 ,it was a luxury for the rich1 a curious thing for ladies' and gentlemen's consumption1 as purely artificial as the stuccoed ,italian villa in which they insisted on shivering in our chilly climate4 ,and the pictures it produced were wholly alien to the popular wants and the popular feelings2 they were part of an imported ,french1 ,italian1 and ,flemish tradition4 ,english art has only slowly outgrown this stage1 just in proportion as truly artistic handicrafts have sprung up here and there1 and developed themselves among us4 ,go into the ,cantagalli or the ,ginori potteries at ,florence1 and you will see mere boys and girls1 untrained children of the people1 positively disporting themselves1 with childish glee1 in painting plates and vases4 ,you will see them1 not slavishly copying a given design of the master's1 but letting their fancy run riot in lithe curves and lines1 in griffons and dragons and floral twists-and-twirls of playful extravagance4 ,they revel in ornament4 ,now1 it is out of the loins of people like these that great artists spring by nature--not ,state-taught1 artificial1 made-up artists1 but the real spontaneous product1 the ,lippi and ,botticelli1 the hereditary craftsmen1 the born painters4 ,and in ,england nowadays it is a significant fact that a large proportion of the truest artists--the innovators1 the men who are working out a new style of ,english art for themselves1 in accordance with the underlying genius of the ,british temperament1 have sprung from the great industrial towns--,birmingham1 ,manchester1 ,leicester--where artistic handicrafts are now once more renascent4 ,i won't expose myself to further ridicule by repeating here 7what ,i nevertheless would firmly believe1 were it not for the scoffers7 that a large proportion of them are of ,celtic descent--belong1 in other words1 to that section of the complex ,british nationality in which the noble traditions of decorative art never wholly died out--that section which was never altogether enslaved and degraded by the levelling and cramping and soul-destroying influences of manufacturing industrialism4 ,in ,italy1 art is endemic4 ,in ,england1 in spite of all we have done to stimulate it of late years with guano and other artificial manures1 it is still sporadic4 ,the case of music affords us an apt parallel4 ,till very lately1 ,i believe1 our musical talent in ,britain came almost entirely from the cathedral towns4 ,and why8 ,because there1 and there alone1 till quite a recent date1 there existed a hereditary school of music1 a training of musicians from generation to generation among the mass of the people4 ,not only were the cathedral services themselves a constant school of taste in music1 but successive generations of choristers and organists gave rise to something like a musical caste in our episcopal centres4 ,it is true1 our vocalists have always come mainly from ,wales1 from the ,scotch ,highlands1 from ,yorkshire1 from ,ireland4 ,but for that there is1 ,i believe1 a sufficient physical reason4 ,for these are clearly the most mountainous parts of the ,united ,kingdom2 and the clear mountain air seems to produce on the average a better type of human larynx than the mists of the level4 ,the men of the lowland1 say the ,tyrolese1 croak like frogs in their marshes2 but the men of the upland sing like nightingales on their tree-tops4 ,and indeed1 it would seem as if the mountain people were always calling to one another across intervening valleys1 always singing and whistling and shouting over their work in a way that gives tone to the whole vocal mechanism4 ,witness ,welsh penillion singing4 ,and wherever this fine physical endowment goes hand in hand with a delicate ear and a poetic temperament1 you get your great vocalist1 your ,sims ,reeves or your ,patti4 ,but in ,england proper it was only in the cathedral towns that music was a living reality to the people2 and it was in the cathedral towns1 accordingly1 during the dark ages of art1 that exceptional musical ability was most likely to show itself4 ,more particularly was this so on the ,welsh border1 where the two favouring influences of race and practice coincided--at ,gloucester1 ,worcester1 ,hereford1 long known for the most musical towns in ,england4 ,cause and effect act and react4 ,art is a product of the artistic temperament4 ,the artistic temperament is a product of the long hereditary cultivation of art4 ,and where a broad basis of this temperament exists among the people1 owing to intermixture of artistically-minded stocks1 one is liable to get from time to time that peculiar combination of characteristics--sensuous1 intellectual1 spiritual--which results in the highest and truest artist4 ,,xxiii4 ,a ,,glimpse ,,into ,,utopia4 ,you ask me what would be the position of women in an ideal community4 ,well1 after dinner1 imagination may take free flight4 ,suppose1 till the coffee comes1 we discuss that question4 ,woman1 ,i take it1 differs from man in being the sex sacrificed to reproductive necessities4 ,whenever ,i say this1 ,i notice my good friends1 the women's-rights women1 with whom ,i am generally in pretty close accord1 look annoyed and hurt4 ,i can never imagine why4 ,i regard this point as an original inequality of nature1 which it should be the duty of human society to redress as far as possible1 like all other inequalities4 ,women are not on the average as tall as men2 nor can they lift as heavy weights1 or undergo1 as a rule1 so much physical labour4 ,yet civilised society recognises their equal right to the protection of our policemen1 and endeavours to neutralise their physical inequality by the collective guarantee of all the citizens4 ,in the same way ,i hold that women in the lump have a certain disadvantage laid upon them by nature1 in the necessity that some or most among them should bear children2 and this disadvantage ,i think the men in a well-ordered ,state would do their best to compensate by corresponding privileges4 ,if women endure on our behalf the great public burden of providing future citizens for the community1 the least we can do for them in return is to render that burden as honourable and as little onerous as possible4 ,i can never see that there is anything unchivalrous in frankly admitting these facts of nature2 on the contrary1 it seems to me the highest possible chivalry to recognise in woman1 as woman1 high or low1 rich or poor1 the potential mother1 who has infinite claims on that ground alone to our respect and sympathy4 ,nor do ,i mean to deny1 either1 that the right to be a mother is a sacred and peculiar privilege of women4 ,in a well-ordered community1 ,i believe1 that privilege will be valued high1 and will be denied to no fitting mother by any man4 ,while maternity is from one point of view a painful duty1 a burden imposed upon a single sex for the good of the whole1 it is from another point of view a privilege and a joy1 and from a third point of view the natural fulfilment of a woman's own instincts1 the complement of her personality1 the healthy exercise of her normal functions4 ,just as in turn the man's part in providing physically for the support of the woman and the children is from one point of view a burden imposed upon him1 but from another point of view a precious privilege of fatherhood1 and from a third point of view the proper outlet for his own energy and his own faculties4 ,in an ideal ,state1 then1 ,i take it1 almost every woman would be a mother1 and almost every woman a mother of not more than about four children4 ,an average of something like four is necessary1 we know1 to keep up population1 and to allow for infant mortality1 inevitable celibates1 and so forth4 ,few women in such a ,state would abstain from maternity1 save those who felt themselves physically or morally unfitted for the task2 for in proportion as they abstained1 either the ,state must lack citizens to carry on its life1 or an extra and undue burden would have to be cast upon some other woman4 ,and it may well be doubted whether in a well-ordered and civilised ,state any one woman could adequately bear1 bring up1 and superintend the education of more than four young citizens4 ,hence we may conclude that while no woman save the unfit would voluntarily shirk the duties and privileges of maternity1 few 7if any7 women would make themselves mothers of more than four children4 ,four would doubtless grow to be regarded in such a community as the moral maximum2 while it is even possible that improved sanitation1 by diminishing infant mortality and adult ineffectiveness1 might make a maximum of three sufficient to keep up the normal strength of the population4 ,in an ideal community1 again1 the woman who looked forward to this great task on behalf of the race would strenuously prepare herself for it beforehand from childhood upward4 ,she would not be ashamed of such preparation2 on the contrary1 she would be proud of it4 ,her duty would be no longer to suckle fools and chronicle small beer1 but to produce and bring up strong1 vigorous1 free1 able1 and intelligent citizens4 ,therefore1 she must be nobly educated for her great and important function--educated physically1 intellectually1 morally4 ,let us forecast her future4 ,she will be well clad in clothes that allow of lithe and even development of the body2 she will be taught to run1 to play games1 to dance1 to swim2 she will be supple and healthy1 finely moulded and knit in limb and organ1 beautiful in face and features1 splendid and graceful in the native curves of her lissom figure4 ,no cramping conventions will be allowed to cage her2 no worn-out moralities will be tied round her neck like a mill-stone to hamper her4 ,intellectually she will be developed to the highest pitch of which in each individual case she proves herself capable--educated1 not in the futile linguistic studies which have already been tried and found wanting for men1 but in realities and existences1 in the truths of life1 in recognition of her own and our place among immensities4 ,she will know something worth knowing of the world she lives in1 its past and its present1 the material of which it is made1 the forces that inform it1 the energies that thrill through it4 ,something1 too1 of the orbs that surround it1 of the sun that lights it1 of the stars that gleam upon it1 of the seasons that govern it4 ,something of the plants and herbs that clothe it1 of the infinite tribes of beast and bird that dwell upon it4 ,something of the human body1 its structure and functions1 the human soul1 its origin and meaning4 ,something of human societies in the past1 of institutions and laws1 of creeds and ideas1 of the birth of civilisation1 of progress and evolution4 ,something1 too1 of the triumphs of art1 of sculpture and painting1 of the literature and the poetry of all races and ages4 ,her mind will be stored with the best thoughts of the thinkers4 ,morally1 she will be free2 her emotional development1 instead of being narrowly checked and curbed1 will have been fostered and directed4 ,she will have a heart to love1 and be neither ashamed nor afraid of it4 ,thus nurtured and trained1 she will be a fit mate for a free man1 a fit mother for free children1 a fit citizen for a free and equal community4 ,her life1 too1 will be her own4 ,she will know no law but her higher instincts4 ,no man will be able to buy or to cajole her4 ,and in order that she may possess this freedom to perfection1 that she may be no husband's slave1 no father's obedient and trembling daughter1 ,i can see but one way3 the whole body of men in common must support in perfect liberty the whole body of women4 ,the collective guarantee must protect them against individual tyranny4 ,thus only can women be safe from the bribery of the rich husband1 from the dictation of the father from whom there are expectations4 ,in the ideal ,state1 ,i take it1 every woman will be absolutely at liberty to dispose of herself as she will1 and no man will be able to command or to purchase her1 to influence her in any way1 save by pure inclination4 ,in such a ,state1 most women would naturally desire to be mothers4 ,being healthy1 strong1 and free1 they would wish to realise the utmost potentialities of their own organisms4 ,and when they had done their duty as mothers1 they would not care much1 ,i imagine1 for any further outlets for their superfluous energy4 ,i don't doubt they would gratify to the full their artistic sensibilities and their thirst for knowledge4 ,they would also perform their duties to the ,state as citizens1 no less than the men4 ,but having done these things ,i fancy they would have done enough2 the margin of their life would be devoted to dignified and cultivated leisure4 ,they would leave to men the tilling of the soil1 the building and navigation of marine or aerial ships1 the working of mines and metals1 the erection of houses1 the construction of roads1 railways1 and communications1 perhaps even the entire manufacturing work of the community4 ,medicine and the care of the sick might still be a charge to some2 education to most2 art1 in one form or another1 to almost all4 ,but the hard work of the world might well be left to men1 upon whom it more naturally and fitly devolves4 ,no hateful drudgery of earning a livelihood4 ,women might rest content with being free and beautiful1 cultivated and artistic1 good citizens to the ,state1 the mothers and guardians of the coming generations4 ,if any woman asks more than this1 she is really asking less--for she is asking that a heavier burden should be cast on some or most of her sex1 in order to relieve the minority of a duty which to well-organised women ought to be a privilege4 ,but all this has no practical bearing6 ,i beg your pardon4 ,an ideal has often two practical uses4 ,in the first place1 it gives us a pattern towards which we may approximate4 ,in the second place1 it gives us a standard by which we may judge whether any step we propose to take is a step forward or a step backward4 ,,xxiv4 ,,of ,,second ,,chambers4 ,a ,second ,chamber acts as a drag4 ,progress is always uphill work4 ,so we are at pains to provide a drag beforehand--for an uphill journey4 ,there1 in one word1 you have the whole philosophy of ,second ,chambers4 ,how1 then1 did the nations of ,europe come to hamper their legislative systems with such a useless1 such an illogical adjunct8 ,in sackcloth and ashes1 let us confess the truth--we ,english led them astray3 on us the shame2 to us the dishonour4 ,theorists1 indeed 7wise after the fact1 as is the wont of theorists71 have discovered or invented an imaginary function for ,second ,chambers4 ,they are to preserve the people1 it seems1 from the fatal consequences of their own precipitancy4 ,as though the people--you and ,i--the vast body of citizens1 were a sort of foolish children1 to be classed with infants1 women1 criminals1 and imbeciles 7,i adopt the chivalrous phraseology of an ,act of ,parliament71 incapable of knowing their own minds for two minutes together1 and requiring to be kept straight by the fatherly intervention of ,dukes of ,marlborough or ,marquises of ,ailesbury4 ,the ideal picture of the level-headed peers restraining the youthful impetuosity of the representatives of the people from committing to-day some rash act which they would gladly repent and repeal to-morrow1 is both touching and edifying4 ,but it exists only in the minds of the philosophers1 who find a reason for everything just because it is there4 ,members of ,parliament1 ,i have observed1 seem to know their own minds every inch as well as earls--nay1 even as marquises4 ,the plain fact of the matter is1 all the ,second ,chambers in the world are directly modelled upon the ,house of ,lords1 that ,old ,man of the ,sea whom ,england1 the weary ,titan1 is now striving so hard to shake off her shoulders4 ,the mother of ,parliaments is responsible for every one of them4 ,senates and ,upper ,houses are just the result of irrational ,anglomania4 ,when constitutional government began to exist1 men turned unanimously to the ,english ,constitution as their model and pattern4 ,that was perfectly natural4 ,evolutionists know that evolution never proceeds on any other plan than by reproduction1 with modification1 of existing structures4 ,america led the way4 ,she said1 ,england has a ,house of ,commons2 therefore we must have a ,house of ,representatives4 ,england has also a ,house of ,lords2 nature has not dowered us with those exalted products1 but we will do what we can2 we will imitate it by a ,senate4 ,monarchical ,france followed her lead2 so did ,belgium1 ,italy1 civilisation in general4 ,i believe even ,japan rejoices to-day in the august dignity of a ,second ,chamber4 ,but mark now the irony of it4 ,they all of them did this thing to be entirely ,english4 ,and just about the time when they had completed the installation of their peers or their senators1 ,england1 who set the fashion1 began to discover in turn she could manage a great deal better herself without them4 ,and then what do the philosophers do8 ,why1 they prove to you the necessity of a ,second ,chamber by pointing to the fact that all civilised nations have got one--in imitation of ,england4 ,furthermore1 it being their way to hunt up abstruse and recondite reasons for what is on the face of it ridiculous1 they argue that a ,second ,chamber is a necessary wheel in the mechanism of popular representative government4 ,a foolish phrase1 which has come down to us from antiquity1 represents the populace as inevitably fickle1 a changeable mob1 to be restrained by the wisdom of the seniors and optimates4 ,as a matter of fact1 the populace is never anything of the sort4 ,it is dogged1 slow1 conservative1 hard to move2 it advances step by step1 a patient1 sure-footed beast of burden2 and when once it has done a thing1 it never goes back upon it4 ,i believe this silly fiction of the fickleness of the mob is mainly due to the equally silly fictions of prejudiced ,greek oligarchs about the ,athenian assembly--which was an assembly of well-to-do and cultivated slave-owners4 ,i do not swallow all that ,thucydides chooses to tell us in his one-sided caricature about ,cleon's appointment to the command at ,sphacteria1 or about the affair of ,mitylene2 and even if ,i did1 ,i think it has nothing to do with the question4 ,but on such utterly exploded old-world ideas is the whole modern argument of the ,second ,chamber founded4 ,does anybody really believe great nations are so incapable of managing their own affairs for themselves through their duly-elected representatives that they are compelled to check their own boyish ardour by means of the acts of an irresponsible and non-elective body8 ,does anybody believe that the ,house of ,commons works too fast1 and gets through its public business too hurriedly8 ,does anybody believe we improve things in ,england at such a break-neck pace that we require the assistance of ,lord ,salisbury and ,lord ,st4 ,leonards to prevent us from rushing straight down a steep place into the sea1 like the swine of ,gadara8 ,if they do1 ,i congratulate them on their psychological acumen and their political wisdom4 ,what the ,commons want is not a drag1 but a goad--nay1 rather1 a snow-plough4 ,no2 the plain truth of the matter is this3 all the ,second ,chambers in the world owe their existence1 not to any deliberate plan or reason1 but to the mere accident that the ,british nobles1 not having a room big enough to sit in with the ,commons1 took to sitting separately1 and transacted their own business as a distinct assembly4 ,with so much wisdom are the kingdoms of the earth governed6 ,how else could any one in his senses have devised the idea of creating one deliberative body on purpose to mutilate or destroy the work of another8 to produce from time to time a periodical crisis or a periodical deadlock8 ,there is not a country in the world with a ,second ,chamber that doesn't twice a year kick and plunge to get rid of it4 ,the ,house of ,lords was once a reality4 ,it consisted of the ecclesiastical hierarchy--the bishops and mitred abbots2 with the official hierarchy--the great nobles1 who were also great satraps of provinces1 and great military commanders4 ,it was thus mainly made up of practical life-members1 appointed by merit4 ,the peers1 lay and spiritual1 were the men who commended themselves to the sovereign as able administrators4 ,gradually1 with prolonged peace1 the hereditary element choked and swamped the nominated element4 ,the abbots disappeared1 the lords multiplied4 ,the peer ceased to be the leader of a shire1 and sank into a mere idle landowner4 ,wealth alone grew at last to be a title to the peerage4 ,the ,house of ,lords became a ,house of ,landlords4 ,and the ,english people submitted to the claim of irresponsible wealth or irresponsible acres to exercise a veto upon national legislation4 ,the anomaly1 utterly indefensible in itself1 had grown up so slowly that the public accepted it--nay1 even defended it4 ,and other countries1 accustomed to regard ,england--the ,pecksniff among nations--as a perfect model of political wisdom1 swallowed half the anomaly1 and all the casuistical reasoning that was supposed to justify it1 without a murmur4 ,but if we strip the facts bare from the glamour that surrounds them1 the plain truth is this--,england allows an assembly of hereditary nobodies to retard or veto its legislation nowadays1 simply because it never noticed the moment when a practical ,house of administrative officers lapsed into a nest of plutocrats4 ,mend or end8 ,as it stands1 the thing is a not-even-picturesque medival relic4 ,if we ,english were logical1 we would arrange that any man who owned so many thousand acres of land1 or brewed so many million bottles of beer per annum1 should ipso facto be elevated to the peerage4 ,why should not gallons of gin confer an earldom direct1 and ,brighton ,a's be equivalent to a marquisate8 ,why not allow the equal claim of screws and pills with coal and iron8 ,why disregard the native worth of annatto and nitrates8 ,baron ,beecham or ,lord ,sunlight is a first-rate name4 ,as it is1 we make petty and puerile distinctions4 ,beer is in1 but whiskey is out2 and even in beer itself1 if ,i recollect aright1 ,dublin stout wore a coronet for some months or years before ,english pale ale attained the dignity of a barony4 ,no ,minister has yet made chocolate a viscount4 ,at present1 banks and minerals go in as of right1 while soap is left out in the cold1 and even cotton languishes4 ,if the ,chancellor of the ,exchequer put up titles to auction1 while abolishing the legislative function of the ,lords1 there would be millions in it4 ,but as we ,english are not logical1 our mending would probably resolve itself into fatuous tinkering4 ,we might get rid of the sons1 but leave the fathers4 ,we might flood the ,lords with life peers1 but leave the veto4 ,such tactics are too ,britannic4 ,stone dead hath no fellow6 ,,xxv4 ,a ,,point ,,of ,,criticism4 ,a few pages back1 ,i ventured to remark that in ,utopia or the ,millennium the women of the community would probably be supported in common by the labour of the men1 and so be secured complete independence of choice and action4 ,when these essays first appeared in a daily newspaper1 a ,leader among ,women wrote to me in reply1 ,what a paradise you open up to us6 ,alas for the reality6 ,the question is--could women ever be really independent if men supplied the means of existence8 ,they would always feel they had the right to control us4 ,the difference of the position of a woman in marriage when she has got a little fortune of her own is something miraculous4 ,men adore money1 and the possession of it inspires them with an involuntary respect for the happy possessor4 ,now ,i got a great many letters in answer to these ,post-,prandials as they originally came out--some of them1 strange to say1 not wholly complimentary4 ,as a rule1 ,i am too busy a man to answer letters3 and ,i take this opportunity of apologising to correspondents who write to tell me ,i am a knave or a fool1 for not having acknowledged direct their courteous communications4 ,but this friendly criticism seems to call for a reply1 because it involves a question of principle which ,i have often noted in all discussions of ,utopias and ,millennia4 ,for my generous critic seems to take it for granted that women are not now dependent on the labour of men for their support--that some1 or even most of them1 are in a position of freedom4 ,the plain truth of it is--almost all women depend for everything upon one man1 who is or may be an absolute despot4 ,a very small number of women have money of their own1 as we quaintly phrase it--that is to say1 are supported by the labour of many among us1 either in the form of rent or in the form of interest on capital bequeathed to them4 ,a woman with five thousand a year from ,consols1 for example1 is in the strictest sense supported by the united labour of all of us--she has a first mortgage to that amount upon the earnings of the community4 ,you and ,i are taxed to pay her4 ,but is she therefore more dependent than the woman who lives upon what she can get out of the scanty earnings of a drunken husband8 ,does the community therefore think it has a right to control her8 ,not a bit of it4 ,she is in point of fact the only free woman among us4 ,my dream was to see all women equally free--inheritors from the community of so much of its earnings2 holders1 as it were1 of sufficient world-consols to secure their independence4 ,that1 however1 is not the main point to which ,i desire just now to direct attention4 ,i want rather to suggest an underlying fallacy of all so-called individualists in dealing with schemes of so-called ,socialism--for to me your ,socialist is the true and only individualist4 ,my correspondent's argument is written from the standpoint of the class in which women have or may have money4 ,but most women have none2 and schemes of reconstruction must be for the benefit of the many4 ,so-called individualists seem to think that under a more organised social state they would not be so able to buy pictures as at present1 not so free to run across to ,california or ,kamschatka4 ,i doubt their premiss1 for ,i believe we should all of us be better off than we are to-day2 but let that pass2 'tis a detail4 ,the main thing is this3 they forget that most of us are narrowly tied and circumscribed at present by endless monopolies and endless restrictions of land or capital4 ,i should like to buy pictures2 but ,i can't afford them4 ,i long to see ,japan2 but ,i shall never get there4 ,the man in the street may desire to till the ground3 every acre is appropriated4 ,he may wish to dig coal3 ,lord ,masham prevents him4 ,he may have a pretty taste in ,venetian glass3 the flints on the shore are private property2 the furnace and the implements belong to a capitalist4 ,under the existing rgime1 the vast mass of us are hampered at every step in order that a few may enjoy huge monopolies4 ,most men have no land1 so that one man may own a county4 ,and they call this ,individualism6 ,in considering any proposed change1 whether imminent or distant1 in practice or in day-dream1 it is not fair to take as your standard of reference the most highly-favoured individuals under existing conditions4 ,nor is it fair to take the most unfortunate only4 ,you should look at the average4 ,now the average man1 in the world as it wags1 is a farm-labourer1 an artisan1 a mill-hand1 a navvy4 ,he has untrammelled freedom of contract to follow the plough on another man's land1 or to work twelve hours a day in another man's factory1 for that other man's benefit--provided always he can only induce the other man to employ him4 ,if he can't1 he is at perfect liberty to tramp the high road till he drops with fatigue1 or to starve1 unhindered1 on the ,thames ,embankment4 ,he may live where he likes1 as far as his means permit2 for example1 in a convenient court off ,seven ,dials4 ,he may make his own free bargain with grasping landlord or exacting sweater4 ,he may walk over every inch of ,english soil1 with the trifling exception of the millions of acres where trespassers will be prosecuted4 ,even travel is not denied him3 ,florence and ,venice are out of his beat1 it is true2 but if he saves up his loose cash for a couple of months1 he may revel in the ,oriental luxury of a third-class excursion train to ,brighton and back for three shillings4 ,such advantages does the rgime of landlord-made individualism afford to the average run of ,british citizen4 ,if he fails in the race1 he may retire at seventy to the ease and comfort of the ,union workhouse1 and be buried inexpensively at the cost of his parish4 ,the average woman in turn is the wife of such a man1 dependent upon him for what fraction of his earnings she can save from the public-house4 ,or she is a shop-girl1 free to stand all day from eight in the morning till ten at night behind a counter1 and to throw up her situation if it doesn't suit her4 ,or she is a domestic servant1 enjoying the glorious liberty of a ,sunday out every second week1 and a walk with her young man every alternate ,wednesday after eight in the evening4 ,she has full leave to do her love-making in the open street1 and to get as wet as she chooses in ,regent's ,park on rainy nights in ,november4 ,look the question in the face1 and you will see for yourself that the mass of mothers in every community are dependent for support1 not upon men in general1 but upon a single man1 their husband1 against whose caprices and despotism they have no sort of protection4 ,even the few women who are1 as we say1 independent1 how are they supported1 save by the labour of many men who work to keep them in comfort or luxury8 ,they are landowners1 let us put it2 and then they are supported by the labour of their farmers and ploughmen4 ,or they hold ,north-,western shares2 and then they are supported by the labour of colliers1 and stokers1 and guards1 and engine-drivers4 ,and so on throughout4 ,the plain fact is1 either a woman must earn her own livelihood by work1 which1 in the case of the mothers in a community1 is bad public policy2 or else she must be supported by a man or men1 her husband1 or her labourers4 ,my day-dream was1 then1 to make every woman independent1 in precisely the same sense that women of property are independent at present4 ,would it give them a consciousness of being unduly controlled if they derived their support from the general funds of the body politic1 of which they would be free and equal members and voters8 ,well1 look at similar cases in our own ,england4 ,the ,dukes of ,marlborough derive a heavy pension from the taxes of the country2 but ,i have never observed that any ,duke of ,marlborough of my time felt himself a slave to the imperious taxpayer4 ,mr4 ,alfred ,russel ,wallace is justly the recipient of a ,civil ,list annuity2 but that hasn't prevented his active and essentially individualist brain from inventing ,land ,nationalisation4 ,mr4 ,robert ,buchanan very rightly draws another such annuity for good work done2 but ,mr4 ,buchanan's name is not quite the first that rises naturally to my lips as an example of cowed and cringing sycophancy to the ideas and ideals of his fellow-citizens4 ,no1 no2 be sure of it1 this terror is a phantom4 ,one master is real1 realisable1 instant2 but to be dependent upon ten million is just what we always describe as independence4 ,,the ,,end4 ,,printed ,,by ,,ballantyne1 ,,hanson ,,and ,,co4 ,,edinburgh ,,and ,,london4