,note3 ,images of the original pages are available through ,internet ,archive4 ,see https3_/_/archive4org_/details_/nightswi thgods#jjreicrich ,,nights ,,with ,,the ,,gods44 ,illustration ,,nights ,,with ,,the ,,gods by ,,emil ,,reich ,doctor ,juris ,author of ,foundations of ,modern ,europe ,success among ,nations etc4 ,illustration ,london ,t4 ,werner ,laurie ,cliffords ,inn1 ,fleet ,street ,the ,riverside ,press ,limited1 ,edinburgh4 ,,contents ,,page ,,the ,,first ,,night ,,aristotle ,,on ,,specialism ,,in ,,england #a ,,the ,,second ,,night ,,diogenes ,,and ,,plato ,,on ,,tolstoy1 ,,ibsen1 ,,shaw1 ,,etc4 #cb ,,the ,,third ,,night ,,alcibiades ,,on ,,women ,,in ,,england #fe ,,the ,,fourth ,,night ,,alcibiades--,,continued #aja ,,the ,,fifth ,,night ,c,,sar ,,on ,,the ,,house ,,of ,,commons #acd ,,the ,,sixth ,,night ,,apollo ,,and ,,dionysus ,,in ,,england #afj ,,the ,,seventh ,,night ,,socrates1 ,,diogenes1 ,,and ,,plato ,,on ,,religion #ahb ,,foreword ,the great spirits of the past1 chiefly ,hellenes1 recently revisited ,england4 ,with a view to an exchange of ideas on ,english contemporary life1 they met at night in various towns of ,italy1 where1 by the favour of ,dionysus1 the author was allowed to be present1 and to take notes at the proceedings4 ,the following pages contain some of the speeches delivered in the ,assembly of the ,gods and ,heroes4 ,,the ,,author4 #cc ,,st ,,luke',s ,,road1 ,,notting ,,hill1 ,,london1 ,w4 ,,nights ,,with ,,the ,,gods ,,the ,,first ,,night ,,aristotle ,,on ,,specialism ,,in ,,england ,the first night the gods and heroes assembled on the heights around ,florence4 ,from the magnificent town there came only a faint glimmer of artificial light1 and the ,arno rolled its waves melodiously towards the sea4 ,on a height full of convenient terraces1 offering a view on the ,lily of the ,arno1 on ,fiesole1 and on the finely undulating outlines of the ,apennine ,mountains1 the ,assembly sat down4 ,from afar one could see the bold lines of the copy of ,michelangelo's ,david on the hill4 ,the evening was lovely and balmy4 ,zeus opened the meeting with a request directed to ,alexander1 ,king of ,macedon1 to ask his teacher ,aristotle to entertain them with his experiences at the seats of modern learning and study4 ,alexander did so1 and the grave ,stagirite1 mellowed by the years1 addressed the ,assembly as follows3 ,all my mortal life ,i have tried1 by reading1 by making vast collections of natural objects and animals1 and by the closest thinking on the facts furnished to me by men of all sorts of professions and crafts1 to get at some unity of knowledge4 ,i held1 and still hold1 that just as ,nature is one1 so ought ,knowledge too to be4 ,i have written a very large number of treatises1 many of which1 thanks to ,thy ,providence1 ,o ,zeus1 have escaped the smallpox called commentaries1 in that the little ones never got possession of those works4 ,but while always loving detail and single facts1 ,i never lost sight of the connection of facts4 ,as a coin1 whether a penny or a sovereign1 has no currency unless the image of the prince is cut out on it1 even so has no fact scientific value unless the image of an underlying general principle is grafted thereon4 ,this great truth ,i taught all my pupils1 and ,i hoped that men would carefully observe it in all their studies4 ,when then ,i went amongst the little ones1 ,i expected them to do as ,i had taught their teachers to do4 ,however1 what ,i found was1 ,o ,zeus1 the funniest of all things4 ,on my visit to what they call ,universities ,i happened to call1 in the first place1 on a professor who said he studied history4 ,in my time ,i believed that history was not as suggestive of philosophical truths as is poetry4 ,since then ,i have somewhat altered my view4 ,naturally enough ,i was curious to know what my ,professor of ,history thought of that1 and ,i asked him to that effect4 ,he looked at me with a singular smile and said3 ',my young friend 7--,i had assumed the appearance of a student--71 my young friend1 history is neither more nor less than a science4 ,as such it consists of a long array of specialities4' ',and which1' ,i asked timidly1 'is your special period8' ,whereupon the professor gravely said3 ',the afternoons of the year #abcd ,a4,d4' ,while everybody present in the ,assembly1 including even ,st ,francis of ,assisi1 laughed at this point of ,aristotle's narrative1 ,diogenes exclaimed3 ,why has the good man not selected the nights of that year8 ,it would greatly reduce his labours4 ,a peal of laughter rewarded the lively remark4 ,aristotle resumed his tale1 and said3 ,when the professor saw that ,i was a little amused at his statement1 he frowned on me and exclaimed in a deep voice1 if with frequent stammerings1 which as ,i subsequently learnt is the chief attraction of their diction1 ',my young friend1 you must learn to understand that we modern historians have discovered a method so subtle1 and so effective1 that1 with all deference be it said1 we are in some respects stronger even than the gods4 ,for the gods cannot change the past2 but we modern historians can4 ,we do it every day of our lives1 and some of us have obtained a very remarkable skill at it4' ,at this point of ,aristotle's narrative ,homeric laughter seized all present1 and ,aristophanes patted the ,stagirite on the back1 saying3 ,pray1 consider yourself engaged4 ,at the next performance of my best comedy you will be my protagonist4 ,aristotle thanked him with much grace1 and continued3 ,i was naturally very curious to learn what my ,professor of ,history thought of the great ,greeks of my own time and of that of my ancestors4 ,i mentioned ,homer4 ,i had barely done so but what my professor burst into a coarse and disdainful guffaw4 ',homer8' he exclaimed2 ',homer8--but of whom do you speak8 ,homer is nothing more nor less than a multiple syndicate of street-ballad-singers who1 by a belated process of throwing back the reflex of present and modern events to remote ages1 and by the well-known means of literary contamination1 epical syncretism1 and religious1 mythopoeic1 and subconscious impersonation have been hashed into the appearance of one great poet4 ',our critical methods1 my young friend1 are so keen that1 to speak by way of simile1 we are able to spot1 from looking at the footprints of a man walking in the sand1 what sort of buttons he wore on his cuffs4 ',poor ,cuvier--otherwise one of my revered colleagues--used to say3 ,give me a tooth of an animal and ,i will reconstruct the rest of the animal's body4 ,what is ,cuvier's feat as compared with ours8 ,he still wanted a tooth2 he still was in need of so clumsy and palpable a thing as a tooth2 perhaps a molar4 ,we1 the super-,cuviers of history1 we do not want a tooth any more than toothache2 we want nothing4 ,no tooth1 no footprint even1 simply nothing4 ,is it not divine8 ,we form1 as it were1 an ,ex ,nihilo ,club4 ,we have nothing1 we want nothing1 and yet give everything4 ,although we have neither leg to stand on1 nor tooth to bite with1 we staunchly prove that ,homer was not ,homer1 but a lot of ,homers4 ,is that not marvellous8 ,but even this1 my young friend1 is only a trifle4 ,we have done far greater things4 ',these ancient ,greeks 7quite clever fellows1 ,i must tell you1 and some of them could write grammatical ,greek71 these ancient ,greeks had1 amongst other remarkable men1 one called ,aristotle4 ,he wrote quite a number of works2 of course1 not quite as many as he thought he did4 ,for we have proved by our ,ex ,nihilo methods that much of what he thought he had written was not written by him1 but dictated4 ,we have gone even so far 7,i myself1 although used to our exploits1 stand sometimes agape at our sagacity71 we have gone so far as to prove that in the dictation of some of his writings ,aristotle was repeatedly interrupted by letters or telephonic messages1 which accounts for gaps and other shortcomings4 ',well1 this man ,aristotle 7for1 we have not yet pluralised him1 although ,i--but this would pass your horizon1 my young friend7--this clever man has left us1 amongst other works1 one called ,politics4 ,it is not wanting in quality1 and it is said1 if with certain doubts1 that there are a few things to be learnt from it4 ,it is1 of course1 also said that no professor has ever learnt them4 ,but this is mere calumny4 ,look at their vast commentaries4 ,of course1 how can one accept some of the glaring fallacies of ,aristotle8 ,imagine1 that man ,aristotle wants us to believe that nearly all ,greek states were founded1 equipped with a constitution1 and in a word1 completely fitted out by one man in each case4 ,thus1 that ,sparta was founded1 washed1 dressed1 fed1 and educated by one ,lycurgus4 ,how ridiculous6 ',having proved1 as we have1 that ,homer's poetry1 a mere book1 was made by a ,joint ,stock ,company1 ,unlimited1 how can we admit that a big and famous state like ,sparta was ordered1 cut out1 tailored1 stuffed and set on foot by one man8 ,where would be ,evolution8 ,if a state like ,sparta was made in the course of a few months by one man1 what would ,evolution do with all the many1 many years and ages she has to drag along8 ,why1 she would die with ennui1 bored to death4 ,can we admit that8 ,can one let ,evolution die8 ,is she not a nice1 handy1 comely ,evolution1 and so useful in the household that we cannot be happy until we get her8 ,to believe in a big1 important state like ,sparta having been completely established by one man is like saying that my colleague1 the ,professor of ,zoology1 taking a shilling bottle of ,bovril1 has reconstituted out of its contents a live ox walking stately into his lecture-room4 ,hah-hah-hah6 ,very good joke4 7,secretary6 ,put it into my table-talk6 ,voltairian joke6 serious1 but not grave47 ',now1 you see1 my young friend1 in that capital point ,aristotle was most childishly mistaken2 and even so in many another point4 ,we have definitely done away with all state-founders of the ancients4 ,romulus is a myth2 so is ,theseus2 so is ,moses2 so is ,samson 7not to speak of ,delilah72 so is everybody who pretended to have founded a city-state4 ,since he never existed1 how could he have founded anything8 ,could ,i found a city-state8 ,or any state1 except a certain state of mind1 in which ,i say that no single man can found a city-state8 ,could ,i8 ,of course1 ,i could not4 ,well then1 how could ,lycurgus8 ,was he a ,,ll4,d48 ,was he a member of the ,british ,academy8 ,was he a professor at ,oxford8 ,had he written numerous letters to ,the ,times8 ,was he subscriber to so respectable a paper as ,the ,spectator8 ,it is ridiculous to speak of such a thing4 ,lycurgus founding ,sparta6 ,it is too amusing for words4 ,these are all myths4 ,whatever we cannot understand1 we call a myth2 and since we do not understand many things1 we get every day a richer harvest of myths4 ,we are full of them4 ,we are the real living mythology4' ,to this long oration1 ,aristotle continued1 ,i retorted as calmly as ,i could1 that we ,greeks had states totally different from those of the moderns1 just as the latter had a ,church system absolutely different from our religious institutions2 so that if anyone had tried to persuade an ,athenian of my time that a few hundred years later there would be ,popes1 or single men claiming and obtaining the implicit obedience of all believers in all countries1 the ,athenian would sooner have gone mad than believe such stuff4 ,for1 to him1 as a ,greek1 it must have seemed hopelessly incredible that an office such as that of the universal ,pope should ever be tolerated2 or1 in other words1 that a single man should ever be given such boundless spiritual power4 ,i said all that with much apparent deference2 but my professor got more and more out of control4 ',what1' said he1 'what do you drag in ,popes for8 ,we talk of ,lycurgus1 not of ,popes4 ,was ,lycurgus a ,christian8 ,let us stick to the point4 ,the point is that ,lycurgus never existed1 since so many professors1 who do exist beyond doubt1 deny his historical existence4 ,now1 either you deny the existence of these professors1 which you can't2 or you deny that of ,lycurgus1 which you must4 ,existence cannot include non-existence4 ,for1 non-existence is1 is it not8--the negation of existence4 ,and since the professors exist1 their non-existence would involve us in the most exasperating contradictions with them1 with ourselves1 and with the daily ,press4 ,this1 however1 would be a disaster too awful to be seriously thought of4 ,consequently1 ,lycurgus did not exist2 nor did any other state-founding personality in ,greek or ,roman times4 ',in fact when you come to think of it1 nobody ever existed except ourselves4 ,adam was not2 he will be at the end of ends4 ,the whole concept of the world is wrong as understood by the vulgar4 ,those old ,greek and ,roman heroes1 like ,aristomenes1 ,coriolanus1 ,cincinnatus1 never existed for a day4 ,nor did the ,doric ,migration1 the ,twelve ,tables1 and lots of other so-called events4 ,they have been invented by schoolmasters for purposes of exams4 ,did ,draco's laws ever exist8 ,ridiculous4 ,that man ,aristotle speaks of them1 but it is as evident as soap that he invented them for mods4 or other exams4 of his4 ',the vulgar constantly ask me whether or no history repeats itself4 ,what1 for goodness' sake1 does that matter to me8 ,it is sufficient for all purposes that historians repeat each other1 for it is in that way that historical truth is established4 ,or do not the great business-princes thus establish their reputation8 ,they go on repeating ,best furniture at ,staple's1 ,best furniture at ,staple's1 three hundred and sixty-five times a year1 in three hundred and sixty-five papers a day4 ,by repetition of the same thing they establish truth4 ,so do we historians4 ,that's business4 ,what1 under the circumstances1 does it matter1 whether history itself does or does not repeat itself8 ',one arrogant fellow who published a wretched book on ,general ,history1 thought wonders what he did not do by saying1 that ,history does repeat itself in institutions1 but never in events or persons4 ,can such drivel be tolerated6 ,why1 the repetition by and through persons 7read3 historians7 is the very soul of history4 ,we in this country have said and written in and out of time and on every sort of paper1 that the ,decline and ,fall of the ,burmese ,empire is the greatest historical work ever written by a ,byzantine1 or a post-,byzantine4 ,we have said it so frequently1 so incessantly1 that at present it is an established truth4 ,who would dare to say that it is not8 ,why1 the very ,daily ,nail would consider such a person as being beneath it4 ',we real historians go for facts only4 ,ideas are sheer dilettantism4 ,give us facts1 nothing but single1 limited1 middle-class facts4 ,in the ,republic of ,letters we do not suffer any lordly ideas1 no more than the idea of lords4 ,one fact is as good as another1 and far worse4 ,has not our greatest authority taught that the ,british ,empire was established in and by absent-mindedness1 that is1 without a trace of reasoned ideas8 ,as the ,british ,empire1 even so the ,british historians1 and1 cela vo sang dir1 all the other historians4 ,mind is absent4 ,mind is a periodical2 not a necessity4 ,we solid researchers crawl from one fact to another for crawling's sake4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,the gods and heroes were highly amused with the tale of ,aristotle1 and it was with genuine delight that they saw him resume the story of his experiences at the seats of learning4 ,when ,i left the ,professor of ,history1 continued ,aristotle1 ,i felt somewhat heavy and dull4 ,i could not easily persuade myself that such utter confusion should reign in the study of history after so many centuries of endless research4 ,i hoped that the little ones might have made more real advance in philosophy2 and with a view to ascertain the fact1 ,i entered a lecturing hall where a professor was even then holding forth on my treatise ',de ,anima4' ,he had just published a thick book on my little treatise1 although 7or perhaps because84447 another professor1 a ,frenchman1 had recently published a much thicker book on it4 ,i listened very attentively1 but could not understand a word of what he said4 ,he treated me text-critically1 philologically1 hermeneutically1--everything1 except understandingly4 ,i felt that my treatise was not mine at all4 ,it was his4 ,at a given moment ,i could not help uttering aloud a sarcastic remark about the professor's explanations4 ,down he came on me like thunder1 and with a triumphant sneer he proved to me that what ,i had said ,i had not said at all4 ,in that ,i differed entirely from a great statesman of theirs1 who had said what he had said4 ,the professor put me under a regular examination1 and after twenty minutes formally ploughed me in ',de ,anima4' ,this was a novel experience for me4 ,in the ,middle ,ages1 it is true1 ,i had repeatedly had the same experience1 and ,albertus ,magnus and ,st ,thomas ,aquinas had done me the same honour4 ,but in modern times ,i had not yet experienced it4 ,the next day ,i called upon the professor1 who lived in a beautiful house1 filled with books1 amongst which ,i saw a great number of editions of my own works4 ,i asked him whether he had ever cared to study the anima1 or what they call the psychology of animals4 ,i added that ,aristotle had evidently done so1 as his works explicitly prove1 and that after he had surveyed all sorts of souls in the vegetable1 animal and human kingdom1 both normal and pathological1 he wrote his treatise ',de ,anima1' the real sense of which must escape him who has not taken such a wide range of the question4 ,ah--you ought to have seen the professor6 ,he jumped from his seat1 took another whisky and soda and said3 ',my young friend1 the first thing in science is to distinguish well4 ,bene docet qui bene distinguit4 ,you speak of animals4 ,what have they to do with human psychology8 ,their souls are studied by my colleague who goes in for comparative psychology2 or rather by several of my colleagues1 one of whom studies the comparative psychology of the senses2 the other that of the emotions2 the third that of memory2 the fourth--the fifth--the sixth1 etc41 etc41 etc4 ',i1 ,i stick to my point4 ,i have my speciality4 ,you might think that my speciality is psychology1 or ,aristotle's psychology4 ,not at all4 ,this is all too vague1 too general4 ,my speciality is quite special2 a particularly singular speciality3 the text of ,aristotle's psychology4 ,and even that goes too far2 for what ,i really call my speciality is my version of the text which is said to have been written by ,aristotle4 ',now at last we are on firm ground4 ,what under those conditions need ,i trouble about cats and rats8 ,the latter1 the rats1 have1 ,i admit1 some little importance for me4 ,they have in their time devoured parts of ,aristotle's manuscripts1 and ,i have now to reconstitute what they have swallowed4 ,i am to them a kind of literary ,beecham's ,pill4 ,but as to cats1 mules or donkeys8 ,what have they to do with me8 ,can they influence my version of the text8 ,hardly4 ',my young friend1 if ,aristotle himself came to me1 ,i should tell him3 ,my good man1 unless you accept my version of your text1 you are out of court4 ,i am a professor1 and you are only an author4 ,worse than that--a ,greek author4 ,as theologians fix the value and meaning of gospel-words2 as the ,state makes a piece of worthless paper worth five pounds sterling by a mere declaration2 even so we say what you ,aristotle did say4 ,what you said or meant is indifferent2 what we say you said or meant is alone of consequence4 ,how then could even ,aristotle refute me regarding my view of his views8 ,it is logically impossible4 ',don't you see1 this is why we have invented our beautiful system of excessive specialisation4 ,where each of us studies only one very small thing1 there he need not fear much competition1 but may hope for exclusive authority4 ,we shall soon establish chairs for professors of philosophy1 who will study1 each of them1 just a mere splinter of a twig of one branch of the tree of philosophy2 or better still1 just one leaf of such a twig of such a branch2 and finally1 just a dewdrop on such a leaf of such a twig of such a branch4 ,then we shall have completed our network of authority4 ',our contemptible enemies say that our talk about ,aristotle and ,plato is like the gossip of lackeys in the pot-house about their noble masters4 ,we know better4 ,you are a young man4 ,i will give you a bit of profound advice4 ,if you want to make your way in the literary world rapidly and with ease1 hitch on your name to some universally acknowledged celebrity4 ,do not write on obscure1 if great authors or heroes2 but pick out ,homer1 ,plato1 ,dante1 ,shakespeare1 ,goethe1 or ,napoleon4 ,write constantly on some speciality of these men2 thus1 on the adjectives in ,homer2 on the neutral article in ,plato2 on the conjunctions in ,dante2 on the plant-lore in ,shakespeare2 on the names of women in ,goethe2 or on the hats of ,napoleon4 ',your name will then incessantly be before the public together with that of ,homer or ,shakespeare or ,napoleon4 ,after a time1 by a natural association of ideas1 something of the lustre of the immortal will fall on you4 ,note how the most elaborate writers on1 say ,shakespeare1 are almost invariably men of the most sincere mediocrity4 ,they are1 nevertheless1 exceedingly clever tacticians4 ,they become authorities4 ,we are not authorities because we are specialists2 we have1 on the contrary1 introduced the system of specialities in order to pass for authorities4 ,to use ,plato's terms3 our whole business spells effectology1 and nothing else4 ,take this to heart and be successful4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,on leaving the professor1 ,aristotle said1 ,i felt that ,i had made several steps forward in the comprehension of that system of specialisation which ,i heard praised and admired in all the ,universities4 ,i need not tell you1 my friends1 how utterly wrong that system is4 ,as humans do not think in words1 but in whole sentences1 so ,nature does not act in particulars1 but in wholes4 ,the particulars are ours1 not ,nature's4 ,in making them we act arbitrarily4 ,why should dentistry be one speciality8 ,why should there not be thirty-two different specialist dentists for our thirty-two teeth8 ,all specialisation in the realm of knowledge is rank arbitrariness4 ,without exception1 the great leading ideas in all organised thought have invariably been made by wholesale thinkers like ,pythagoras1 ,plato1 ,i venture to add3 myself1 ,lionardo da ,vinci1 ,kepler1 ,newton1 ,pascal1 ,leibniz1 ,darwin4 ,that is precisely where humans differ from animals4 ,all animals are the most conceited specialists4 ,here ,diogenes interrupted3 ,does the converse hold good1 ,o ,aristotle8 ,i will leave1 ,aristotle replied with a smile1 the consideration of this case to your own discretion4 ,i do repeat it1 that each animal is an out-and-out specialist4 ,it troubles about nothing else than the two or three things it takes a professional interest in4 ,it eats1 sleeps1 and propagates2 occasionally it adds a tightly circumscribed activity of some kind4 ,that's why animals do not talk4 ,it is not part of their speciality4 ,they do not talk for the same reason that the ,english do not produce fine music1 nor the ,prussians tactful behaviour4 ,in all these cases the interest of the specialist lies elsewhere4 ,does a modern specialist in heart-diseases study the kidneys8 ,does a specialist in surgery care to study the nerves8 ,even so an animal does not care to speak4 ,it is a specialist2 it restricts itself to its 'business1' to 'the point4' ,the little ones say that animals have no general ideas1 and that is why they cannot speak4 ,but have human specialists any general ideas of anything1 and yet--do they not speak8 ,the argument is too foolish for words4 ,why1 ,nature created men in order to have a few generalists1 if ,i may say so1 amongst all the specialists called animals or plants2 just as amongst men she created ,homers and ,platos and ,galileos and ,leibnizes1 in order to save the rest of humans from their evil tendency to over-specialisation4 ,it is a plan as plain as transparent glass4 ,thousands of years ago ,nature found out that1 with all these endless vegetal and animal specialists on hand1 she would soon have to declare herself bankrupt4 ,one specialist ignored the other2 or hampered1 hurt1 and paralysed the other2 they could not understand one another1 because they had no common interest4 ,in her predicament1 ,nature created human beings for the same reason that men invented the locomotive or the telegraph4 ,she could no longer be without him4 ,man was1 by his very needs1 obliged to drop over-specialisation4 ,he interested himself1 for a variety of ends and reasons1 in stones as much as in plants and animals4 ,by exterminating some of the most damaging species of animals1 he saved the life of millions of specimens of other animals that would otherwise have been killed out by ferocious specialists1 such as the tiger1 the leopard1 and the wolf4 ,the same he did to plants1 and partly to rivers and lakes4 ,he brought a little order into this pandemonium of specialists in ,nature4 ,look at the sea4 ,there man was unable to exert his power for order by general ideas4 ,look at the indescribable disorder and chaos and monstrosity of life and living beings in the sea4 ,they are hideous1 like an octopus2 short-lived1 nay1 of a few minutes' duration1 like the jelly-fish2 fearful and yet cowardly like a shark2 abominably under-sized or over-sized2 incapable of any real passion1 except that of eating and drinking4 ,this liquid mass of fanatic and unsystematised specialists render the sea as inferior to the land as is ,thibet to ,holy ,athens4 ,people travelling in that ocean of specialists are exasperated by foul sea-sickness2 and empires built on it have repeatedly been destroyed in a single week2 ay1 in one day4 ,the dread of being swamped by specialists has driven ,nature into creating the most grotesque compositions of beings half plant and half animal1 or half stone and half plant2 or again half male and half female2 or half land-animal1 half fish4 ,another way adopted by ,nature in her attempt to obviate the ravages of specialists was by giving them exceedingly short shrift1 and just a mere speck of existence2 or again by forcing them to form big corporations and societies1 such as forests1 prairies1 meadows1 swarms1 troupes4 ,in fact ,nature is a free lance fighting incessantly the evil done by the specialists4 ,ask ,poseidon what trouble the sea gives him2 ask olus how his life is made a misery through the mad freaks of the various specialists in winds4 ,and what is the deep1 underlying reason of all this insane race for specialism8 ,i will tell you that in one word4 ,it is ,envy and ,jealousy4 ,in certain countries ,envy and ,jealousy are the inextinguishable and ubiquitous hydra of life4 ,take ,england4 ,she is a democracy1 if a masked one4 ,hence ,jealousy is the dominating trait of her citizens4 ,jealousy has1 thousands of years ago1 invented railways1 telegraphs1 wired and wireless ones1 telephones and ,rntgen-rays1 and all the rest of the infernal machines whereby ,space1 ,time1 and ,work is shortened1 curtailed1 annihilated4 ,jealousy has at all times sent wireless messages over and through all the houses of a town or an entire country4 ,it has ,rntgenised the most hidden interiors2 and its poison runs more quickly through all the veins and nerves of men than does the electric spark4 ,look at the customs1 social prejudices1 or views of that nation4 ,over one half of them was introduced to disarm the ever-present demon of ,jealousy4 ,why is a man a specialist8 ,because in that way he disarms ,jealousy more quickly and more surely than by any other expedient4 ,it gives him an air both of modesty and of strength by concentration4 ,in reality it does neither4 ,it is only an air4 ,the so-called ,reality consists of nothing but unrealities1 of shams1 and masks4 ,a specialist is not a master of his subject2 he is a master of the art than which there is no greater1 the art of making other people believe that you are not what you are1 but what they want you to be4 ,nature has a horror of specialists2 and she will reveal her secrets to an insane poet rather than to a specialist4 ,most great inventions were made either by 'outsiders1' or by young men who had not yet had the time to harden into specialists4 ,in specialisation there is nothing but a total misunderstanding of ,nature4 ,nature acts by instantaneous correlation and co-operation of different parts to one end2 and to specialise is tantamount to taking a clock to pieces1 putting them separately in a row on the table1 and then expecting them to give you the exact time4 ,in ,nature there is no evolution1 but only co-evolution2 there is no differentiation but only co-differentiation4 ,the little ones have quite overlooked all that2 and that is why so many of the statements of co-differentiation in my zoology can be neither confirmed nor refuted by them4 ,who dare say which is a 'part' in ,nature8 ,is the hand a 'part1' that is1 something that might legitimately be told off as a speciality8 ,or must it be studied in connection with the arm1 or with its homologies in the nether part of the body8 ,in the same way3 what constitutes a 'period' in history8 ,any division of a hundred or a thousand years by two1 three1 or four8 ,or by a division of twenty-five or thirty only8 ,who can tell8 ,a man who says he is a specialist in the thirteenth century1 is he not like a man who pretends that he is a specialist in respiration in the evening8 ,nature does specialise2 witness her innumerable specialists4 ,but do we know1 do we possess the slightest idea as to how she does it8 ,can we prove why a goose has its peculiar head and not that of a stork8 ,evidently not1 because we do not know what ,nature calls a part1 a speciality4 ,she abhors specialists1 just because they know so little of her way of specialising4 99 99 99 99 99 ,at this point of ,aristotle's speech1 ,aristophanes asked for leave to protest4 ,having obtained it from ,zeus1 he commenced forthwith3 ,o ,father of ,nature and ,man1 ,i can no longer stand the invective of the ,stagirite4 ,in his time he was prudent enough to postpone his birth till after my mortal days2 otherwise ,i should have treated him as ,i did ,meton and ,socrates1 and other philosophers4 ,but here he shall not escape me4 ,just imagine1 this man wants to deprive creation of the best fun that is offered to the thinking beings amongst animals and humans4 ,i wish he had overheard1 as ,i have1 when the other night ,i passed through an old forest near ,darlington1 a conversation between an old owl1 a black woodpecker1 and a badger4 ,the owl sat1 somewhat lower than usual on a birch-tree1 while the woodpecker stopped his work at the bark of the groaning tree1 and the badger had left his hole in order to enjoy the cool breath of the night4 ,the owl said3 ',good-evening1 ,mr ,woodpecker1 how is business8 ,many worms beneath the bark8' ,the woodpecker replied3 ',thanks1 madam1 there is a slump1 but one must put up with what one can get4' ,the badger then complained that he passed tedious hours in the ground1 and he wished he could again see the exciting times of a few hundred thousand years ago when earthquakes and other catastrophes made existence more entertaining4 ',quite so1' said the owl1 'the forest is getting too civilised1 and too calm4 ,but you see1 my friends1 ,i have provided for much solid amusement for my old days4 ,i used to visit a human's room1 who read a great number of books4 ,i asked him to teach me that art4 ,i found it easy enough1 only that these humans will read in a straight line from left to right1 and ,i am accustomed to circular looks all round4 ',when ,i had quite acquired the art1 ,i read some of his books4 ,they were all about us folk in the forest4 ,once ,i chanced upon a chapter on owls4 ,you may easily imagine how interested ,i was4 ,i had not yet read a few pages1 when ,i was seized with such a laughter that the professor became very indignant and told me to leave him4 ,this ,i did2 but whenever he read his books1 ,i read them too1 perched on a tree not far from his study4 ,i cannot tell you how amusing it was4 ',these humans tell stories about us owls1 and about you1 ,mr ,woodpecker1 and ,mr ,badger1 that would cause a sloth to dance with joy4 ,they imagine they know how we see1 how we fly1 how we get our food1 and how we make our abodes4 ,as a matter of fact they have hopelessly wrong notions about all these things4 ,they want1 as my venerated father used to say1 to tap the lightning off into nice little flasks1 in order to study it conveniently4 ,this they call ,evolution4 ',the idea was mostly developed in ,england1 in a country where they are proud of thinking that they always muddle through somehow4 ,these three words they apply to ,nature1 and call it ,evolution4 ,once upon a time1 they say--it does not matter whether #bjj1jjj or #cjj1jjj years1 or perchance #fde1ghi years ago--there was my ancestor who1 by mere accident1 had an eye that enabled him to see more clearly at night than other birds did4 ,this eye enabled him to catch more prey1 thus to live longer1 and to transmit his nocturne of an eye to his progeny4 ,and so by degrees we muddled into owlship4 ',is that not charming8 ,my father used to laugh at that idea until all the cuckoos came to inquire what illness had befallen him4 ,he told me1 that an owl's eye was in strict correlation with definite and strongly individual formations of the ears1 of the neck1 of the feet1 and of the intestines1 and that accordingly a mere accidental change in the supposed ancestor's eye was totally insufficient to account for the corresponding and correlative formations just mentioned4 ',such correlative and simultaneous changes in various organs can be the consequences only of a violent and1 as it were1 fulgurous shock to the whole system of a bird4 ,such shocks are not a matter of slow growth4 ,as all individual animal life at present is called into existence by one shock of fulgurant forces1 even so it arose originally4 ',but the ,english think that ,nature is by birth an ,englishman who adopts new organisms as ,englishmen adopt new systems of measures1 calendars1 inventions1 or laws1--i4e4 hundreds of years after someone else has fulgurated them out4 ',they imagine ,nature to be1 by rank and profession1 a middle-class man and muddler2 by religion1 a ,nonconformist2 and by politics1 a ,liberal4 ,however1 we know better4 ,nature is1 by rank and profession1 a free lance and a genius2 by religion1 a ,roman ,catholic2 and by politics1 a ,tory of the ,tories4 ,now this being so1 you may imagine1 ,mr ,woodpecker and ,mr ,badger1 what capital fun it is to read these learned lucubrations about birds and other animals as written by humans4 ',the other day ,i called on ,master ,fox in the neighbourhood4 ,he was ill and1 in order to amuse him1 ,i told him what they say of him in human books4 ,he fairly burst with laughter4 ,he told me later on1 that by narrating all the ,don ,quixote stories told of him by man1 to a big brown bear1 he became the court-favourite of that dreaded king of the place4 ',i have sent the swiftest bat1 to whom ,i gave a safe conduct1 to all the birds and animals of this country1 to meet at a given time on one of the peaks of the ,hartz ,mountains1 where ,i mean to entertain them with the stories told by specialists on each of them1 on their structure1 functions1 and mode of life4 ,it will be the greatest fun we have had these two thousand years4 ,i charged the nightingales1 the larks1 and the mocking birds of ,america to open the meeting with the most wonderful chorus that they have ever sung1 and ,i am sure that ,i will deserve well of the whole community of birds and other animals by offering them this the most exhilarating amusement imaginable4' ,so spake the owl4 ,and now1 ,o ,zeus1 can you really brook ,aristotle's attempt to demolish and to remove men who furnish pleasure and intense amusement to so many animals holy to men and even to the gods8 ,i cannot believe it4 ,you know how necessary it is to provide carefully for the amusement of people4 ,to neglect ,dionysus is to court hideous punishment4 ,if the specialists in ,nature should disappear1 you will1 ,o ,zeus1 have endless anarchy on all sides4 ,birds1 insects1 snakes1 and reptiles1 lions1 felines1 and bears--they will all rise in bored discontent1 in the waters1 on land1 in the air4 ,you will never have a free moment for calm repose4 ,they will worry all the gods incessantly4 ,they will make the most annoying conspiracies and plots and intrigues against all of us4 ,let us not take ,aristotle seriously4 ,he means well1 and is no doubt quite right1 as far as reason goes4 ,but does reason go very far8 ,can he now deny the eternal rights of unreason8 ,to remove the specialists in biology and natural history is to remove the comedy from ,athens4 ,the ,athenians1 in order to be ruled1 must be entertained4 ,but for me and the like of me1 the ,athenians could never have held out as long as they did hold out4 ,it is even so with animals4 ,they want their ,aristophanes4 ,they must have their specialists4 ,pray1 ,artemis1 you who in your hunts over dales and mountains have heard and observed everything that concerns animals1 join me in protesting against the onslaught of ,aristotle on men so necessary for the well-being of animated ,nature4 99 99 99 99 99 ,artemis ,diana laughed melodiously and nodded consent4 ,the other gods1 amidst great hilarity1 passed a vote against ,aristotle1 and the sage smilingly bowed acceptance of the censure4 ,i will abide1 he exclaimed1 by your decision4 ,but1 pray1 let me make just one more remark which1 ,i have no doubt1 the master-minds of the unique city1 over which we are hovering at present1 will gladly approve4 ,i call upon you ,lionardo1 ,michelangelo1 ,machiavelli1 and you magnificent ,lorenzo1 whether ,i am exceeding the limits of truth4 ,i do maintain that while the little ones have1 in religion1 gone from ,polytheism to ,monotheism1 they pretend that in matters of knowledge time is constantly increasing the number of gods to be worshipped4 ,at present they affect to believe no longer in the numerous gods and goddesses of the ,olympus1 but only in one ,god4 ,in point of knowledge1 on the other hand1 they declare that each little department thereof is endless1 requiring the study and devotion of a whole lifetime1 and controlled1 each of them1 by a god whom they call an authority4 ,now1 nothing can be more evident than the fact that knowledge1 real knowledge1 becomes increasingly more stenographic in expression1 and sensibly easier of acquisition4 ,the ,chinese write encyclopdias in #fjjj volumes2 the modern ,europeans do so in twenty-four or thirty-six volumes4 ,here ,diogenes interrupted the ,stagirite and said3 ,i am afraid1 ,o ,aristotle1 that your argument has little real force to boast of4 ,it does not prove at all that the ,chinese have only crude1 empirical1 and unorganised knowledge1 while the little ones in ,europe have a reasoned and systematised1 and hence a less cumbrous one4 ,this is owing to quite a different cause4 ,the little ones have of late invented a method of publishing encyclopdias in a manner so well adapted to tempt1 threaten1 bully1 or wire each member of the general public into the purchase of an entire copy1 that if their encyclopdias consisted of #fjjj or #aj1jjj volumes each1 the people of ,england1 for instance1 would have to conquer ,norway1 ,sweden1 and ,iceland first4 ,norway they would be obliged to conquer1 in order to possess themselves of sufficient wood for the cases2 ,sweden1 in order to appoint all ,swedish gymnasts for the acrobatic feat of fetching a volume from the fiftieth row of a bookcase2 and ,iceland1 in order to place excited readers of the encyclopdia in a cool place4 ,but for this circumstance1 ,i am sure the little ones in ,europe would fain publish an encyclopdia in #ae1jjj volumes4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the laughter of the ,assembly had subsided1 ,aristotle continued3 ,nothing has struck me more forcibly in my visit to their seats of learning than this universal belief in the infinitude of each tiny department or speciality4 ,they do most gravely assert that 'nowadays' it is impossible to embrace more than one speciality2 and they look upon me or ,leibniz with a certain knowing smile as if in our times all knowledge would have consisted of a few jugs full of water1 whereas now it is no less than an ocean4 ,but when you ask them the simplest questions1 they are at a loss how to answer them4 ,i asked one of their most famous specialists why the eyebrows of men are shorter than the moustaches4 ,he did not know it4 ,how could he8 ,it takes the knowledge of at least five so-called specialities to answer such a question4 ,i asked their most learned specialist in their language1 why the ,english have dropped the use of 'thou1' although no other ,european nation has done so4 ,he did not know it4 ,they study a given subject when death has driven out all life from it4 ,they do not trouble about language as a living organism1 full of fight1 of movement1 of ruses1 of intrigues1 of sins and graces2 but only of language when it lies motionless1 a veritable corpse1 on the table of the anatomical dissector and dictionary-fiend4 ,they do not study a butterfly when it is in full life1 flirting1 pilfering1 gossiping1 merrymaking2 but only when it is motionless1 lifeless1 pierced by a pin4 ,this is how they get their specialities4 ,death indeed is the greatest of all specialisers4 ,as soon as a man is dead1 each hair or bone on or in his body takes up a separate line of decay1 caring nothing for the other1 full of scorn for its immediate neighbour1 sulking by itself1 wandering to the ,styx alone and sullen4 ,in ,england they have pushed that belief in specialities to a funereal degree4 ,i wonder they allow a man to play one of their instruments1 called the piano1 with both his hands at a time4 ,i wonder they do not insist that a given piece by ,chopin be played by two men1 one of whom should first play the part for the right hand1 and afterwards the other man the part for the left hand4 ,to play both parts at a time1 and to have that done by one single man too1--what presumption6 ,how superficial6 ,in law they have long acted in this sense4 ,there is one man1 called the solicitor 7--a very good name--71 who plays the bass1 or left-hand part with a vengeance1 for several weeks4 ,when that is done2 when the 'hearer' or client lies prostrate on the ground from the infernal noise made by the solicitor's music1 the solicitor hands over the whole case to the other man1 the barrister1 who plays the most tortuous treble1 in a manner likely to madden ,pan himself4 ,the idea1 accepted by all the other nations of ,europe1 that the whole prejudicial business of a legal contention might very well be left to one man1 to a lawyer proper1--what presumption6 ,how superficial6 ,but when you tell them that they browbeat their own principle of specialisation by taking their judges from amongst late barristers1 then they wax into an august anger4 ,yet no other nation does that4 ,the function of a judge is radically different from that of a barrister4 ,after a man has been a barrister for twenty years2 after all his mind has taken the creases and folds of barristerdom2 after he has quite specialised himself in that particular line1 he is unlikely to have the best qualities of a judge4 ,if a barrister cannot be a solicitor2 why should he be at once1 and suddenly able to become judge8 ,their arguments to that effect are most amusing4 ,they dance a real war-dance round the truth that they mean to scalp4 ,the truth of course is that all the three have one and the same speciality3 that of running ,england4 ,that country is lawyer-ridden1 as ,egypt was priest-ridden1 or ,babylonia scribe-ridden4 ,the ,english being too proud to be stingy or petty in money matters1 do not mind their rulers1 the solicitors-barristers-judges1 because these deprive them eventually only of what the ,english do not hold in great esteem1 small sums of money4 ,in ,france1 where people cling fanatically to a penny1 the barristers have not been allowed to become judges4 ,in ,france specialisation in law has triumphed1 where in ,england it has failed4 ,does that not show that specialisation is done1 not in obedience to the behests of truth1 but to those of interests8 ,we ,hellenes specialised on small city-states2 we did not want to widen out indefinitely into huge states2 just because we wanted to give each citizen a chance of coining out all his human capital1 and not to become1 like our slaves1 a limited specialist4 ,in a huge state specialisation becomes inevitable4 ,in such states they must1 more or less1 sterilise the human capital of millions of citizens1 just as we ,hellenes sterilised the political capital of thousands of slaves4 ,specialisation is enslaving1 if not downright slavery4 ,it furthers truth very little2 it cripples man4 ,just as a man who talks several languages well1 will write his own idiom better than do his less accomplished compatriots2 even so the man who keeps his mind open to more than one aspect of things1 to more than one 'speciality' will be by far more efficient than his less broad-minded colleagues4 ,man may and shall invent1 as ,i have long predicted it1 highly specialised machines doing the work of the weaver1 or the baker4 ,but he himself must not become a machine4 ,this is what happens 'now1' as the little ones say all over ,europe and ,america4 ,not only have they formed states with many1 many millions of people each4 ,worse than that1 they have agglomerated the majority of these millions into a few towns of unwieldy size4 ,in those towns specialisation is carried into every fibre of men and women4 ,this desiccates them1 disemotions them1 sterilises them4 ,we ,hellenes gladly admit that the ,europeans of the last four centuries have excelled us in one art3 in music4 ,but their period for this exceeding excellence is now gone4 ,by over-specialisation of thought and heart1 caused chiefly by over-urbanisation1 the very wells of music begin to dry up4 ,the music of the day is hysterical1 neurasthenic1 and false4 ,it is the cry1 not of an aching heart1 but of an aching tooth1 of a gouty toe1 or a rheumatic nerve4 ,it does not weep2 it coughs phthisically4 ,it does not sigh2 it sneezes4 ,it is a blend of what we used to call ,phrygian and ,corybantic rhapsodies4 ,and as in music1 even so in character4 ,where each individual distorts himself or herself into a narrow speciality1 there people must needs become as angular1 lop-sided1 and grotesque as possible4 ,they are1 when together in a room1 like the words on a page of a dictionary3 they have nothing to communicate to one another4 ,there they stand1 each in his cage1 uncommunicative1 sulky1 and forbidding4 ,one thinks in ,f major2 the other in ,f sharp minor4 ,harmony amongst them is impossible4 ,every one of them is hopelessly right in every one of his ideas2 and of all mental processes1 that of doubt or hesitation in judgment is the last they practise4 ,a specialist does not doubt4 ,why should he8 ,to him the most complicated things human appear as mere specialities1 that is1 as mere fragments4 ,a woman is only a specialist in parturition4 ,a physician is only a specialist in writing ,latin words on small slips of paper4 ,a barrister is only a man who wears neither moustache nor beard4 ,a clergyman is practically a collar buttoning behind1 and supported by a sort of man inside it4 ,in that way everything is so simplified that no difficulty of comprehending it remains4 ,all this clearly proves1 ,o ,empedocles1 how right and1 at the same time1 how wrong you were in your view of the origin of things4 ,perhaps you were right in saying that the parts or organs of our bodies arose singly1 or1 as it were1 as specialists4 ,in times long before us there arose1 as you taught1 heads without necks2 arms wandering alone in space2 eyes1 without foreheads1 roaming about by themselves4 ,but when you say that all this happened only at the beginning of things1 you are1 ,i take it1 sorely mistaken4 ,indeed it is still going on in countries where specialism reigns supreme2 at anyrate it is going on in the moral world4 ,in such countries you still see arms wandering alone in space1 or eyes roaming about without foreheads1 as well as heads without brains flying about in space4 ,not literally1 of course4 ,but what else is a character-specialist cultivating exclusively one quality of the human soul than an arm wandering about alone8 ,the little ones must come back to the ,hellenic idea of seeing things as a whole1 and not1 as do wretched flies1 as mere chips of things4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the divine ,assembly had listened deferentially to the great sage4 ,zeus now charged ,hermes to fetch some of the masterpieces from the room called the ,tribuna at the ,uffizi in ,florence4 ,hermes1 aided by a number of nymphs1 fetched them and1 placing them in the midst of the ,assembly1 exhibited their perfect beauty to the gods and heroes4 ,this refreshed their souls sickened with the story of the serfdom of modern over-specialism4 ,,the ,,second ,,night ,,diogenes ,,and ,,plato ,,on ,,tolstoy1 ,,ibsen1 ,,shaw1 ,,etc4 ,on the second night the ,olympians assembled at ,pompeii4 ,it was a balmy1 starry night4 ,the ruins of the old town1 white in their marble dresses1 shone with a spectral brightness against the mountains1 bays1 and meadows surrounding them4 ,from ,stabi and ,gragnano opposite one could hear the pipe of ,pan and the laughter of his nymphs1 and on the dark water there were magic boats carrying ,circe and her maids to their blue grotto in ,capri4 ,selene sent her mildest rays over the scene1 and grass and stone were as if steeped in silvery dreams4 ,the place selected for the meeting was the amphitheatre4 ,at a move of ,zeus' right hand the seats and alleys1 which had long since disappeared under the pressure of the ugly lava1 rose from the ground4 ,the orchestra and stage took up their old shape1 and the whole graceful space with its incomparable view was again full of beauty1 comfort1 and pleasurableness4 ,zeus1 and his wife ,juno1 sat down on the central seat1 and around them the other gods and heroes4 ,when everyone had found his or her seat1 ,zeus spake3 ,we have heard with much contentment the experiences of ,aristotle in the country which the little ones below call ,england4 ,we should now like to hear something about the theatres in that strange land4 ,if life itself is so uncommon and funny in that part of the non-,grecian world1 their theatre1 reflecting life1 must be unusually entertaining4 ,perhaps you ,aristotle1 as the most renowned critic of poetry and the drama1 will be good enough to give us an idea of the thing they call drama in ,england4 ,whereupon ,aristotle rose from his seat1 and treated the immortals to a sight which no one had as yet enjoyed3 he smiled4 ,and smilingly he said to the almighty son of ,kronos1 ruler of the world3 ,o ,zeus1 your wish is a behest1 and if you insist ,i will of course obey4 ,but pray1 kindly consider that ,i have1 with your consent1 withheld from these people1 who call themselves moderns1 and who might better be called afterlings1 the second book of my ',poetics1' in which ,i treat of the comedy1 the farce1 the burlesque1 and similar phlyakes1 as we term them4 ,if now ,i should reveal my thoughts on the phlyakes of the ,english1 several of their sophists1 whom they call ,university professors1 might still add to the lava which my commentators have spurted out upon my works1 just as we see here the lava of angry ,vesuvius cover the beauteous fields in and around ,pompeii4 ,may ,i propose the proper person to entertain us about that sort of comedy of the ,english which1 at present1 is more or less generally considered to be their most valuable dramatic output8 ,if so1 ,aristotle continued at a sign from ,zeus1 ,i propose him who over there at the right entrance of the stage lies carelessly on the ground and seems to heed us as little as in his time he heeded the ,athenians and the ,corinthians4 ,aristotle1 raising his hand1 pointed to the shabby1 untidy figure of ,diogenes4 ,when the gods and heroes heard the name and looked at the person of the ,cynic1 they all burst out in immortal laughter1 and the sea1 catching the gay ripple1 laughed as far as ,sorrento4 99 99 99 99 99 ,diogenes1 without moving from his position1 and putting one of his legs comfortably on one of the low statues of a satyr1 turned his head towards ,zeus and exclaimed3 ,verily1 ,i tell you1 you only confirm me in my old belief1 that there is nothing sadder than laughter4 ,why should you laugh8 ,are we not here to enjoy ourselves8 ,is not this lovely spot one where even we might and ought to feel perfectly happy8 ,why1 then1 laugh8 ,i mean1 of course1 laugh at me4 ,i do pooh-pooh all your glories4 ,olympus to me is not a whit more agreeable than my tub at ,corinth4 ,this is1 you understand1 the reason of my predilection for the ,english4 ,they1 alone of all these ,europeans1 live at least for five seconds each day in a tub4 ,i also pooh-pooh your feasts1 your ambrosia and nectar4 ,for having passed a few months in a large village they call ,london1 ,i have so completely lost my palate and taste1 that for the next two thousand years1 at anyrate1 ,i shall not be able to distinguish nectar from stale ale1 nor ambrosia from cabbage4 ,yes1 ,i still pooh-pooh1 disdain and neglect most of the things that you and your worshippers hold in great esteem4 ,alcibiades raved about the beauty of women now limping about in the various cities of the barbarians1 and more particularly in the towns of the ,english4 ,a woman6 ,a mere woman6 ,what is the good of a woman unless one is rid of her8 ,i still think what ,i used to teach1 that between a man and a woman there is only a slight difference1 one that is scarcely worth considering4 ,you may laugh until ,vesuvius again vomits scorn upon you1 but ,i tell you here1 at ,pompeii1 what ,i used to tell everybody at ,corinth3 your glories are all gone1 or ought to go4 ,just look at ,venus4 ,there she sits displaying to eager-looking ,pans and ,sileni the loveliness of her head and neck and figure4 ,but what does it mean after all8 ,repentance and wormwood4 ,look at ,ares--7,mars74 ,does he not look as if he ruled the world8 ,does he not behave as if all great things were achieved through and by him8 ,and what is it in reality8 ,mere butchery--cowardly butchery4 ,you laugh2 of course1 you do4 ,but ,i mean to show you that all that ,i have ever taught is nothing less than strictly true2 the only truth2 truth the one4 ,aristotle1 in pointing me out as the person who can best tell you what this new ,shavian drama of ,england really is2 ,aristotle1 ,i say1 may have acted with malice4 ,he has1 nevertheless1 acted with great wisdom4 ,i am indeed the only man out of the world 7there is none in it71 who does clearly and fully understand my little disciple who calls himself ,bernard ,shaw4 ,of the other friends and admirers of his1 he might very well say what that great ,german philosopher ,hegel said in his last moments3 ',one man alone has understood me well1--and even he misunderstood me entirely4' ,he might with reference to my ,cynic lady friend ,hipparchia also say3 ',one man alone understood me well1--and she was a woman4' ,the fact is1 ,shaw1 the son of ,pooh-,pooh1 is simply a goody disciple of my school1 of the ,cynics4 ,when ,i was still within that mortal coil which men call skin and flesh1 ,i did take all my sputterings and utterings very seriously1 or as they say in cultured ,mayfair3 ',oh grant serio4' ,i really thought1 as undoubtedly thinks my brave disciple in ,london1 that my criticism of social1 political1 or religious things went deep into the essence of all that maintains ,society1 the ,state1 and the ,temples4 ,good old ,plato1 it is true1 hinted at my vanity and conceit more than once1 and ,i still feel the sting of his remark when once1 soaked all through by the rain1 ,i was surrounded by pitying folk3 ',if you want to feel pity for ,diogenes1' ,plato said1 'then leave him alone4' ,but ,i then did not heed any satire directed against me1 being fully occupied with satirising others all day long4 ,however1 since that time1 and since ,i have been given a corner in the palace of the immortals1 lying on one of the steps like a dog1 as that ,italian dauber1 whom they call ,raphael1 painted me in his ',school of ,athens' 7--a fresco which might be much better had ,raphael wisely chosen his age and appeared as a ,pr-,raphaelite--72 ever since ,i have learnt a great deal1 not only about others1 but also about myself4 ,while you superior people drink nectar and partake of ambrosia1 ,i enjoy with infinite zest the malicious pleasure of studying the capers1 antics1 and poses of my posthumous selfs1 the ,diogeneses of that speck on the mirror of eternity which the little ones below call 'our time4' ,could anything be more amusing to a ,cynic of about twenty-two centuries' standing like myself1 who has heard and taught all the most nerve-rasping eccentricities imaginable1 than to hear ,tolstoy1 ,shaw1 ,ibsen1 and tutti quanti1 teach with thunderous ponderosity1 and with penurious fulguration their doctrines as the latest and hitherto unheard-of delivery of the human or inhuman mind8 ,i beg to assure you it is excruciatingly funny4 ,but ,i feel ,i must tell you the whole story in due order4 ,it happened thus4 ,i learnt from ,momus that another posthumous self of mine had arisen and1 accordingly1 ,i forthwith repaired to the place called ,london4 7,by the way1 it is a queer place4 ,it is neither a village1 nor a town2 neither a country1 nor a desert2 it is something of all1 and much of neither47 ,in one of the streets ,i saw an inscription over a door--',agency for amusements1 theatres1 blue bands1 green bands1 etc4' ,i did not quite understand what blue bands had to do with amusement1 but ,i entered4 ,behind the counter was a middle-aged man working busily at papers4 ,i addressed him3 ',be cheerful6' ,he looked at me in a curious fashion1 evidently doubting the sanity of my mind4 ,as a matter of fact1 after a little while ,i could not help seeing that he was right4 ,how could ,i imagine him to be cheerful8 ,i asked him for the means of seeing a theatrical piece by ,shaw4 ,he offered a ticket1 and wanted to know my name4 ,i said ',diogenes4' ,he became impatient1 and said3 ',diogenes--which8 ,i mean1 your family name8' ',i have no other name1' ,i said2 'don't you know1 ,i am ,diogenes who cut ,alexander the ,great8' ',alexander the ,great8' he said--',why1 ,i only know of a tailor1 called ,alexander the ,great4 ,do you mean to tell me you cut him8' ',no1' ,i said2 ',i do not4 ,i mean ,alexander1 ,king of ,macedon4' ,whereupon he contemptuously said3 ',i never heard of the gentleman1 and if he was a king of ,macedon he has made a jolly fine mess of his country--just read about the ,macedonian question in to-day's ,daily ,telegraph4' ,i wanted to ask him whether he was perchance ,professor of ,history1 but other people came in1 and so ,i left4 99 99 99 99 99 ,on the same evening ,i was shown the way to a theatre1 and ,i understood that the piece given was ,arms and the ,man4 ,i enjoyed myself immensely4 ,it is all very well to share the pleasures of ,olympus with the gods4 ,yet1 by all the ,graces1 whenever ,i hear or read reminiscences of my early youth1 those unforgettable events and ideas of the time when ,i walked in the streets of ,athens in the wake of my revered master ,antisthenes1 it gives me a thrill of pleasure1--,i might almost say1 a new shiver4 ,just fancy1 here ,i was sitting in far-off ,britannia1 over two thousand years after my mortal existence1 listening to an oration--of ,antisthenes1 my master1 which we used to call ',kyros4' ,i see very well1 ,o ,ares1 you remember the famous oration directed against you1 against all the glories of ,war1 because even now you frown on me1 and ,i must ask ,venus to keep you in check4 ,i have received too many a whipping while ,i was at ,athens and ,corinth--pray let me in peace here in our temporary ,olympus4 ,at present1 as you well know1 ,i have quite changed my ideas about war1 and much as ,i may have disliked you before1 at present ,i know that ,apollo1 ,venus1 you ,ares1 and ,dionysus keep all mortal things agoing4 ,but let us amuse ourselves with the contemplation of an oration of ,antisthenes in modern ,britannic4 ,antisthenes hated war so much that he attacked the greatest and least doubted military glory of the ,athenians1 their victories over the ,persians4 ,he attacked it with serious arguments1 he sneered at it1 he tried to reduce it to a mere sham4 ,did ,antisthenes not say1 that the victory of the ,athenians over the ,persians at ,salamis would have been something admirable1 had the ,persians excelled the ,athenians in point of virtue and capability8 ,for in that case the ,athenians would have proved even more virtuous and more capable4 ,however1 the ,persians1 ,antisthenes elaborately proves1 were altogether inferior4 ,nor did they have a true king1 ,xerxes being a mere sham king with a high and richly jewelled cap on his head1 sitting on a golden throne1 like a doll4 ,had ,xerxes not to whip his soldiers into battle8 ,what1 then1 is the glory of the ,athenians8 ,none6 ,salamis1 like all battles1 was a mere butchery1 and soldiers are mere cowards1 beating inferiors and running away from superiors4 ,so far ,antisthenes4 ,the ,britannic version of ,antisthenes' sally against war1 soldiers1 and the whole of the military spirit1 ,i found comical in the extreme4 ',well done' ,i repeatedly exclaimed within myself1 when ,i saw the old capers of the ,cynics of my mortal time brought up again for the consumption of people who had never heard of ,cynics4 ,that man ,shaw out-,cynics many a ,cynic4 ,he brings upon the stage a number of persons1 each of whom is1 in turn1 a good soul first1 and then a viper2 an enthusiast1 and then a liar2 a virtue1 and then vice itself4 ,take the girl ,raina4 ,she begins by being ideal and enthusiastic2 ideal1 because she is pure1 young1 and in love with her own fianc2 enthusiastic1 because she is in raptures over the military glory of her fianc1 as would be in all truth and reality a hundred out of each hundred girls in most countries of the sub-,shavian world4 ,not the slightest inkling or fact is indicated that she is not pure1 ideal1 or genuinely enthusiastic4 ,in the next scene she is suddenly made out to be a vicious girl1 a coldly calculating minx1 and we are given to understand that she has had no end of general and particular adventures behind her1 as she hopes to have a good many in front of her4 ,why8 ,why are we now to assume or believe that ,raina of yesterday is not ,raina of to-day8 ,where is the motive1 ,i asked myself with grim satisfaction with the brave ,cynicism of the author4 ,why8 ,simply1 for nothing4 ,the comedy as such does not require it2 no fact alleged to have happened1 substantiates it2 no situation growing out of the piece makes it a dramatic necessity4 ,it is done simply and exclusively1 in true ,cynic fashion1 for the sake of ridiculing a person that began by being enthusiastic for ,war4 ,it is the old story of the ugly sorceress in the child's book of fables4 ',if you praise the beauty of yonder little girl in the garden1 ,i will transform you into a guinea-pig2 and if you still continue doing so1 ,i will make an old cock of you4' ,even so ,raina is changed into a viper1 a liar1 a dissimulator1 a senseless changer of lovers1 an--anything1 without the slightest inner coherence1 or what the philosophers call1 psychological connection4 ,the same old witch's wand is used1 with the freedom of a clown1 with regard to the fianc of ,raina1 the young military hero4 ,he had by a bold cavalry charge captured a battery or two of the enemy's artillery4 ,how can he be forgiven such an execrable deed8 ,how dare he succeed8 ,out with the old sauce of ,antisthenes6 ,it is1 of course1 exceedingly stale by this time4 ,but the ,english1 it appears1 are so thoroughly used to stale sauces4 ,they will not notice it at all4 ,and thus all the threadbare arguments of ,antisthenes are dished up again4 ,i jubilated in my pride4 ,the fianc1 ,sergius1 took the batteries of cannon because1 we are told1 by a mistake of their commander1 they were--not charged4 ,how witty6 ,how clever6 ,antisthenes merely said that the ,persians were much inferior to the ,athenians1 so the latter easily got the better of the former4 ,but this twentieth-century dapper little ,cynic goes one better4 ,he says1 as it were1 the ,persians had no weapons to strike with4 ,who would have thought of such an ingenious satire8 ,please1 ,hermes 7,mercury71 do not interrupt me6 ,i know very well what you mean to say4 ,in all actions of men1 victory depends more on the shortcomings of their rivals and competitors than on their own genius4 ,it is no special feature of military victories4 ,of two grocers in the same street1 one succeeds mainly because the other is neglectful and unbusinesslike4 ,of two dramatists in the same country1 one succeeds because he gives the people what they want1 and not1 as does the other1 what dramatic ,art wants4 ,and so forth ad infinitum4 ,but my ,cynical ,shavian does not heed these inconsistencies2 he knows the public will not notice them4 ,he wants simply to ridicule ,war1 and the whole military spirit4 ,accordingly out with the witch's wand1 and let us change the hero first into a whimpering calf1 and then suddenly into a lewd he-goat1 and then1 for no reason whatever1 into the most mendacious magpie flying about1 and finally into a little mouse caught in a trap laid by a kitchen-maid4 ,for this is precisely what happens to the hero ,sergius4 ,returning from war1 he is sick of it with a nauseating sea-sickness4 ,why8 ,unknown2 or1 as ,herbert ,spencer1 the next best replica of ,antisthenes in ,britannia1 would have said1 unknowable4 ,sergius is sentimentally idiotic about the nullity of his military glory4 ,a few moments later he cannot resist the rustic beauties of a kitchen-maid1 one minute after he had disentangled himself out of the embraces of his beautiful1 young1 and worshipped fianc4 ,the he-goat is upon him4 ,why8 ,unknown1 unknowable4 ,here in our fourth dimension we know very well 7do we not1 ,ares87 that soldiers have done similar escapades8 ,but have barristers done less8 ,have all solicitors proved bosom-proof8 ,has no dramatist ever been sorely tempted by buxomness and vigorous development of youthful flesh8 ,one wonders4 ,why then bring up such stuff1 without the slightest reason1 without the slightest need1 internal or external8 ,but the soldier1 do you not see1 must be run down4 ,he must be ridiculed4 ,it must be shown that he is only a cowardly mouse caught in the trap laid for him by that very kitchen-maid whom at first he treats merely as a well-ordered mass of tempting flesh1 and whom in the end he--marries4 ,this trait is delicious4 ,i have frequently been in ,mysia1 or what these people now call ,bulgaria1 where ,shaw's scene is laid4 ,the idea of a ,bulgarian gentleman of the highest standing marrying a kitchen-maid gave me a fit of laughter4 ,in eccentric ,england a high-born gentleman may very well marry a barmaid4 ,in ,bulgaria a nobleman will no more marry a servant-girl than his own mother4 ,he has known too many of them2 he can study her carefully1 encyclopdically1 without marrying her in the least4 ,for1 she will never love him4 ,of course1 my acolyte full well knows that the ,english are not at all conversant with any nation south of ,dover ,straits1 and that one may tell them anything one pleases about nations other than themselves1 ,they will believe it4 ,and so ,sergius marries the girl by the same necessity that a mouse may be said to have married the trap into which it drops4 ,is not this fun indeed8 ,to call marrying what simple people call getting morally insane8 ,how clever6 ,how bright6 ,this is precisely what we ,cynics used to do in ancient ,greece4 ,we turned humanity inside out1 and then ,i walked in day-time in the streets with a lamp in my hand in search of a normal man1 of a human being4 ,if you vitriole a person's face or character first1 how can you expect him to have unscathed features8 ,but that is precisely the point with us ,cynics4 ,we take human nature2 we then vitriole it out of all shape1 and afterwards cry out in sheer indignation1 ',how awful6' ',how absurd6' ,this reminds me of my lawyer pupil who once1 in the defence of a fellow who had murdered his parents1 pathetically exclaimed to the jury3 ',and finally1 gentlemen1 have pity on this poor1 orphaned boy6' ,not content with ,sergius1 another 'type' of soldier is dragged up to the stage2 a ,swiss4 ,now ,i do not here mean to repeat our old ,greek jokes about people similar to the ,swiss1 such as the ,paphlagonians or ,cilicians4 ,i will only remark that the ,french1 who have for over four hundred years had intimate knowledge of the ,swiss1 put the whole of ,swiss character into the famous mot3 ',which animal resembles a human being most8' ,answer3 ',a ,swiss4' ,from a ,swiss you may expect anything4 ,he talks three languages2 all in vile ,german4 ,he is to his beautiful country like a wart on a perfect face4 ,in the midst of paradise he is worse than a ,prussian yokel born in the dreary heaths of ,north ,germany4 ,he is a ,swiss4 ,he has been a mercenary soldier to ,popes and ,lutheran princes alike4 ,his aim was money2 is money2 will always be nothing but money4 ,he sells his blood as he does the milk of his cows1 by the litre or the decilitre2 preferably by the latter4 ,he likes war well enough2 but he prefers truces and cessation of arms4 ,he thinks the best part of death is the avoidance thereof4 ,he is1 when a mercenary1 a military ,cynic4 ,i like him dearly2 he does me honour4 ,whenever ,i see him on the grand staircase in the ,vatican1 ,i grin 'way down in my heart4 ,here is a ,cynic dressed up like a parrot in gorgeous plumage4 ,diogenes in ,rococo-dress6 ,it is intensely amusing4 ,now this ,swiss is made by ,shaw a 'type' of a soldier4 ,this is quite in accordance with the procedure of the ,cynical ,school4 ,first1 all real soldierly qualities are vitrioled out of the man by making him a ,swiss mercenary2 and then he is shown up in all his callous indifference to ,right1 ,love1 or ,justice2 which is tantamount to saying 'a distinguished ,belgian lady patrolling ,piccadilly after midnight4' ,that ,swiss mercenary proves no more against the worth of soldiers1 than that ,belgian woman proves anything in disgrace of the women of ,belgium4 ,if ,shaw's figure proves anything1 it proves the worthlessness of mercenaries in general1 and of ,swiss mercenaries in particular4 ,that is1 it proves something quite different from what it means to prove4 ,this too is arch-,cynical4 ,why1 who knows it better than ,i1 that we ,cynics were not infrequently instrumental in bringing about the very reverse of what we were aiming at8 ,but the more perverse1 the better the fun4 ,and the fun is excellent beyond words4 ,it is1 in fact1 as grim as the grimmest ,welshman4 ,on my way home from the theatre ,i thought of it1 and started laughing in the street with such violence that a policeman wanted to take me to the station4 ,the grimness of the fun was this3 inquiring about the author1 ,i learnt that he was an ,irishman4 ,i had no sooner made sure of the truth of this statement than ,i could not control myself for laughter4 ,an ,irishman reviling war1 and soldiers1 and the military spirit6 ,how unutterably grim1--how unspeakably grimy6 ,the ,irish1 endowed by nature with gifts of the body as well as the mind incomparably superior to those of the ,english1 have made the most atrocious failure of their history1 of their possibilities1 of their chances1 for that one and only reason1 that they never found means of character and endurance to fight for their rights and hopes in bitter and unrelenting wars4 ,not having made a single effort in any way comparable to the sustained armed resistance of the ,scotch1 the ,dutch1 the ,hungarians1 or the ,boers1 in the course of over three hundred years1 they have fallen under the yoke of a nation whom they detest4 ,this naturally demoralised them1 as it demoralises a mere husband when he is yoked to a hated wife4 ,being demoralised1 they have never1 oh never1 reached that balance of internal powers without which nothing great can be achieved4 ,the ,english with lesser powers1 being undemoralised1 got their powers into far greater balance4 ,so did the ,scot through sustained1 reckless fighting for their ideals4 ,hence the misery of the ,irish1 who are like their fairies1 enchanting1 but fatal to themselves and to others2 unbalanced1 unsteady in mind and resolution to a sickening degree2 fickle1 and resembling altogether sweet kisses from one's lady-love intermingled with knocks in the face from one's vilest creditors4 ,their recoiling from making resolute war on the enemy being the great cause of the failure of the ,irish1 what can be more grimly ,cynical than an ,irishman's indignation at all that appertains to war8 ,we ,cynics always do that4 ,moderation having been the soul of all things ,hellenic1 we ,cynics told the ,greeks that the one fatal excess that man can commit is moderation4 ,of music we taught that its only beauties are in the pauses2 and of man we held that he is perfect only by making himself into a beast4 ,we taught people to contemplate everything in a convex mirror and then to fall foul of the image so distorted4 ,this the idlers and the mob greatly admire4 ,they deem it marvellous originality4 ,and what can be nearer to the origin of new things than to take man and nature always in the last agonising stage of final decomposition8 ,in my own dramas ,i did all that with a vengeance2 so did ,crates1 my revered colleague4 ,what was a plot to us8 ,what does a plot matter8 ,the other day when ,i sauntered through the ,champs ,elyses of ,paris1 ,i overheard a conversation between little girls playing at ladies4 ,by ,antisthenes1 that was the real model of the plot and dialogue of all ,cynic dramas6 ,said one little girl to the other3 ',how are you1 madame8' ',thanks1' said the other1 'very well4 ,i am watching my children4' ',how many have you8' ',seventy-five1 please4' ',and how old are you8' ',twenty years1 madame4' ',and how is your husband8' ',y pensez-vous8 ,my husband8 ,fancy that6 ,why1 ,i have none6' ,this is precisely the plot and dialogue in ,shaw's ,candida4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i enjoyed ,candida so intensely2 ,i could have kissed the author4 ,how entirely like my own dramas6 ,how closely modelled on the dialogue of the little girls6 ,a husband of forty1 vigorous1 brave1 honest1 hard-working in a noble cause1 loving and loved1 father of two children1 befriends a boy of eighteen1 who is as wayward and conceited and inconsistent as only boys of eighteen can be4 ,that boy suddenly tells the husband that he1 the boy1 loved ,candida1 the wife of the said husband4 ,the boy1 not satisfied with this amenity1 becomes intolerably impudent1 and the husband1 acting on his immediate and just sentiment1 wants to throw him out of the house4 ,but this is too much of what ninety-nine out of a hundred husbands would do4 ,so instead of kicking the impertinent lad into the street1 the husband--invites him to lunch4 ,i was so afraid the husband would in the end bundle the youth out of the room4 ,to my intense delight the author did not forget the rules of the ,cynic drama1 and the boy remained for lunch4 ,bravo6 ,bravo6 ,i secretly hoped the husband would solemnly charge the interesting youth to fit ,candida with the latest corset4 ,to my amazement that did not take place4 ,but yet there was some relief for me in store3 the husband invites the boy to pass the evening with his wife alone4 ,this is1 of course1 precisely what most husbands would do4 ,this is what another disciple of mine in ,paris 7a man called ,anatole1 and misnamed ,france71 did do in an even worse case4 ,in ,anatole's story1 the husband arrives in the most inopportune moment that a forgetful wife can dread4 ,he looks at the scene with much self-control1 takes up the ,petit ,parisien lying on the floor1 and withdraws gracefully into another room1 there to make sundry reflections on the ,petit ,parisien and on the ',petite ,parisienne4' ,how classically ,cynical6 ,how ,bion1 ,metrocles1 ,menippus1 and all the rest of our sect would have enjoyed that6 ,here is a true comedy6 ,here is something truly realistic1 and realistically true4 ,that's why ,anatole is so much admired by ,englishmen4 ,he too is1 as we ,cynics have been called1 a philosopher of the proletariate4 ,much1 ,o ,zeus1 as ,i enjoy the honour and pleasure of being allowed to crouch on one of the steps of your divine halls1 ,i do also keenly appreciate the pleasure of meeting my disciples of the hour4 ,one of these next days ,i will ask ,momus to invite ,tolstoy1 ,ibsen1 ,shaw1 ,anatole1 and a few others to a lunch1 to meet me in a ,swiss hotel4 ,plato1 you better come and listen behind a screen4 ,you might perhaps improve upon your ,gorgias in which dialogue you attempt to sketch the superman and super-cynic4 ,ibsen will stammer and jerk his best in deathly hatred of all ,authority4 ,shaw will pinprick to death the foundations of ,marriage and ,family4 ,anatole will try to upset1 by throwing little mud-pellets at them1 ideal figures such as ,joan of ,arc 7--,diogenes had barely uttered this name1 when ,zeus and all the other gods rose from their seats1 and bowed towards ,pallas ,athene1 who held ,joan in her holy arms--74 ,tolstoy1 with a penny trumpet in his toothless mouth1 will bray against war2 ,oh1 it will be glorious4 ,of course1 by this time ,i know very well that the controlling principle of all mundane and supramundane things is ,authority4 ,as we here all bow to ,zeus1 so mortals must always bow to some authority4 ,nothing more evident can be imagined nor shown4 ,it is the broadest result of all history1 of all experience4 ,just because this is so1 and unmistakably so1 my disciples must naturally say the reverse4 ,they do not look at facts by a microscope or a telescope2 they telescope train-loads of facts into a mass of pulverised debris4 ,instead of saying that in ,england1 through her social caste system1 there are many1 too many1 parvenus or tactless upstarts1 my disciples must say3 ',the greatness of ,england is owing to her tactlessness4' ,this is the real merchandise which ,i sold at ,corinth over two thousand years ago4 ,tolstoy thunders against ,war4 ,i wonder he does not thunder against mothers' breasts feeding their babies4 ,why1 ,war made everything that is worth having4 ,first of all1 it made ,peace4 ,without war there is no peace2 there is only stagnation4 ,the greater the ideal1 the greater the price we have to pay for it4 ,and since we always crave for the sublime ideals of ,liberty1 ,honour1 ,wealth1 ,power1 ,beauty1 and ,knowledge1 we must necessarily pay the highest price for it--ourselves1 our lives in war4 ,there is no ,dante without the terrible wars of the ,guelfs and the ,ghibellines4 ,there could have been no ideal superman like ,raphael without the counter-superman called ,cesare ,borgia4 ,it is only your abominable ,philistine who squeaks3 ',oh1 we might have many a nice slice from the ham of ,ideals without paying too dearly for it4' ,what do you think of that1 ,hercules8 ,did you win ,hebe by avoiding conflicts and disasters8 ,hercules groaned deeply and looked first at his battered club and then at charming ,hebe4 ,the gods laughed aloud and ,apollo1 taking up his lyre1 intoned a grand old ,doric song in praise of the heroes of war who1 by their valour1 had prepared the palstra for the heroes of thought and beauty4 ,he was soon joined by a thousand harmonious voices from the temple of ,isis1 and from his own majestic sanctuary at ,pompeii4 ,vesuvius counterpointed the lithe song with his deep bass2 and1 with ,dionysus at the head of them1 ,pan and the nymphs came wafting through the air1 strewing buds of melodies on to the ,olympian wreaths of tones sung by ,phoebus ,apollo in praise of ,war4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the song had subsided1 ,zeus1 in a voice full of serenity and benign music1 addressed the gods and heroes as follows3 ,we are very much beholden to ,diogenes for his bright and amusing story of the ,cynical ants that at present run about the woods and cottages of men1 biting each other and their friends4 ,their epigrams and other eccentric utterances can affect none of us here assembled4 ,you very well know that ,i have not allowed ,apollo1 or ,reason to reign alone and unaided by ,unreason1 or ,dionysus4 ,the ,cynical critics of men want to bring about the ,age of ,reason1 or as these presumptuous half-knowers call it1 the ,age of ,science4 ,this1 ,i have long since laid down1 shall never be4 ,at the gate of the ,future1 at ,delphi1 ,apollo is associated with ,dionysus1 and so it has been ever since ,i came to rule this ,universe4 ,just as good music consists of tones and rhythms1 and again of the cessation of all sound1 or of measured pauses2 even so my ,realm consists of ,reason1 and of the cessation of all ,reason1 or of ,unreason4 ,the ,cynics who ignore the latter1 misjudge the former4 ,this1 ,i take it1 is perfectly clear to all of us4 ,but while we here may laugh at the bites of the ,cynical ants below1 we do not mean to state that in their occupation there is no point1 no utility at all4 ,these little ants may be1 and undoubtedly are largely sterile mockers4 ,yet even ,i have experienced it on myself that the effects of their doings are not always sterile4 ,and leaning back on his chryselephantine chair1 ,zeus lowered his voice and said almost in a whisper3 ,see1 friends1 why do we meet here in lonely places1 in a dead town1 during the mysterious hours of night8 ,you know very well who and what has prevailed upon me to choose this temporary darkening of our blissful life4 ,at this moment there came from the rushes near the sea a plaintive song accompanied by a flute1 and a voice of a human sobbed out the cry3 ,pan1 the ,great ,pan is dead6 ,a sudden silence fell over the divine ,assembly4 ,a cloud of deep sadness seemed to hover over all4 ,the three ,graces then betook themselves to dancing1 and their beauteous movements and poses so exhilarated the ,assembly1 that the former serenity was soon re-established4 ,zeus now turned to ,plato1 calling upon him to give his opinion on the ,cynics4 ,zeus reminded ,plato that hitherto the ,cynics had been treated by him merely incidentally1 mostly by hidden allusions to ,antisthenes1 or by witty remarks on ,diogenes4 ,at present ,plato might help the gods to pass agreeably the rest of the beautiful night by telling them in connection and fulness what really the ultimate purport of these modern ,cynics1 ,shavian or other is going to be4 ,everybody turned his or her face towards ,plato1 who rose from his seat1 and bowing1 with a smile1 towards ,diogenes1 thus addressed ,zeus and the ,assembly of gods and heroes at ,pompeii3 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is quite true that in my writings ,i have not devoted any explicit discussion to the views and tenets of the ,cynics4 ,they appeared to me at that time far too grotesque to be worth more than a passing consideration4 ,of their dramas ,i had1 and still have a very poor opinion4 ,from what ,i hear from ,diogenes1 the modern imitators of ,cynic dramatists are not a whit better4 ,in addition to all their wearying eccentricities1 they add the most unbearable eccentricity of all1 to wit1 that their dramas and comedies represent a new departure within dramatic literature4 ,shaw's dramas are no more dramas than his ,swiss1 in ,arms and the ,man1 is a soldier2 or his clergyman in ,candida a husband1 or a man4 ,his pieces are not dramatic in the least2 they do not exhibit the most elementary qualities of a comedy4 ,for1 whatever the definition of a comedy may be1 one central quality can never be missing in it3 the persons presented must be types of human beings4 ,shaw's persons are no humans whatever4 ,they are homunculi concocted in a chemical laboratory of pseudo-science and false psychology4 ,they crack1 from time to time1 brave jokes2 so do clowns in a circus4 ,that alone does not make a wax figure into a human4 ,there may be very interesting comic scenes amongst bees1 wasps1 or beavers2 but we cannot appreciate them4 ,we can only appreciate human comicality1 even when it is presented to us in the shape of dialogues between animals1 as ,aristophanes1 the fabulists1 and so many other writers have done4 ,who would care to sit through a comedy showing the comic aspects of life in a ,bedlam8 ,if madmen have humour1 as undoubtedly they have1 we do not want to see it on a public stage4 ,the fact that it is a madman's humour deprives it of all humour4 ,hedda ,gabler can appeal to no sound taste4 ,one never sees why she is so fearfully unhappy4 ,if she is not in love with her husband1 let her work in the house1 in the kitchen1 in the garden2 let her try to be a mother2 let her adopt a child if the gods deny her one of her own4 ,let her do something4 ,of course1 idling all day long as she does1 will in the end demoralise a poker2 and far from wondering that she ends badly at the end of the last act1 one only wonders that she did not do away with herself before the first scene of the first act4 ,by doing so she would have done a great service to herself1 her people1 and to dramatic literature4 ,of the same kind is ,raina1 in ,arms and the ,man4 ,she is a doll1 but not a young girl4 ,she has neither senses1 nor sense4 ,she is made of cardboard1 and fit only to appear in a ,punch and ,judy show4 ,she is1 in common with most of the figures in the comedies of the modern ,cynics1 a mere outline drawing of a human being from whose mouth hang various slips of paper on which the author conveniently writes his variorum jokes and bright sayings4 ,all these so-called dramatic pieces will be brushed away by the broom of ,time1 as happened to the dramas and travesties of our ,greek ,cynics4 ,life eternal is given to things only through ,art1 and in these writings of the ,cynics1 old or modern ones1 there is not the faintest trace either of one of the ,graces1 or of one of the ,muses4 99 99 99 99 99 ,having said this much about ,shaw's and the other modern ,cynics' alleged dramatic writings1 ,i hasten to add1 that when we come to consider the effect these so-called dramas have1 and possibly will continue to have on the mind of the public1 we are bound to speak in quite a different manner4 ,i have had plenty of time1 since the days of my ,academy at ,athens1 to think out the vast difference between such works of the intellect as aim at nothing but truth and beauty1 or what we might call alethology1 on the one hand2 and such works as aim at effect1 or what may be generally termed as effectology4 ,it is from this all-important point of view that ,i say that ,tolstoy1 ,ibsen1 ,shaw and the others are1 effectologically1 just as remarkable as they are alethologically without much significance4 ,as to the latter2 as to their hitting off great or new truths2 as to their being philosophers2 or to put it in my terms1 as to their having any alethological value1 ,diogenes has already spoken with sufficient clearness4 ,just consider this one point4 ,tolstoy1 as well as ,shaw1 wants to reform the abuses of civilisation4 ,in order to do so they combat with all their might the most powerful purifier and reformer of men1--,war4 ,can anything be more ludicrous1 and unscientific8 ,who gave the modern ,germans that incomparable dash and lan1 thanks to which they have in one generation quadrupled their commerce1 doubled their population1 quintupled their wealth1 and ensured their supremacy on the ,continent8 ,was it done by their thinkers and scholars8 ,the greatest of these died before #ahgj4 ,was it done by getting into possession of the mouth of the ,rhine1 or of the access to the ,danish ,sounds1 which formerly debarred them from the sea8 ,they do not possess the mouth of the ,rhine1 nor ,denmark to the present day4 ,nothing has changed in the material or intellectual world making the ,germany of to-day more advantageous for commerce or power than it had been formerly4 ,except the victorious wars of #ahff and of #ahgj4 ,can such an evident connection of fact be overlooked8 ,and would ,russia have introduced the ,duma without the battle of ,mukden8 ,it is waste of time even for the immortals to press this point much longer4 ,as in this case1 so in nearly all the other cases1 ,cynics revile abuses the sole remedies for which they violently combat4 ,in their negative attacks they brandish the keenest edges of the swords1 daggers and pins of ,logic2 in their positive advices they browbeat every person in the household of logical thought4 ,yet1 worthless1 or very nearly so1 as they may be as teachers of truth1 they are powerful as writers of pamphlets4 ,for this is what their literature comes to4 ,they do not write dramas1 nor novels4 ,they can do neither the one1 nor the other4 ,but they write effective pamphlets in the apparent form of dramas and novels4 ,they are pamphleteers1 and not men of letters4 ,in that lies their undeniably great force4 ,they instinctively choose as eccentric1 as loud1 and as striking forms and draperies of ideas as possible1 so as to rouse the apathetic ,philistine to an interest in what they say4 ,they are full of absurdities2 but which of us here can now after centuries of experience venture to make light of the power of the absurd8 ,error and ,absurdity are so powerful1 so necessary1 so inevitable1 that ,protagoras was perhaps not quite wrong in saying that ,truth herself is only a particular species of ,error4 ,once1 many years ago1 ,i despised the ,cynics1 and my own master ,socrates made light of them4 ,but at present ,i think differently4 ,when ,socrates said1 with subtle sarcasm1 to ,antisthenes3 ',i see your vanity peeping out through the holes of your shabby garment1' ,antisthenes might have retorted to him3 ',and ,i1 ,o ,socrates1 see through these very holes how short-sighted you are4' ,for have we not lived to see that while all revere ,socrates in words1 they follow the pupils of ,antisthenes in deeds8 ,the ,cynics1 fathered by ,antisthenes1 begot the ,stoics2 and the ,stoics were the main ferment in the rise and spread of ,christianity4 ,many of the sayings and teachings and doings of the ,cynics1 which we at ,athens made most fun of1 have long since become the sinews and fibres of ,christian ideas and institutions4 ,there is greater similarity and mental propinquity between ,antisthenes or ,diogenes and ,st ,paul1 than between ,socrates and ,st ,augustine of ,hippo4 ,i pray thee1 ,o ,zeus1 to let us for a moment see this town of ,pompeii as it was a day before its destruction1 with all its life in the streets and the ,forum1 so as to give us an ocular proof of the truth of what ,i just now said about the ,cynics and ,eccentrics of ,antiquity1 and what ,i am going to apply to the modern ,cynics1 literary or other4 99 99 99 99 99 ,thereupon ,zeus1 by a wave of his hand1 placed the whole ,assembly in the shadow as if encircled by a vast mantle of darkness1 and shed a strange and supramundane light on the town of ,pompeii1 which grew up at sight from the ground1 putting on life and movement and beauty on all its houses1 narrow streets1 gardens1 and squares4 ,the ancient population filled1 in ceaseless movement1 every part of the charming city4 ,richly dressed ladies1 carried in sedan-chairs by black slaves2 patricians in spotless togas1 followed by crowds of clients2 magistrates preceded by lictors2 soldiers recruited from all nations2 tradesmen from every part of the ,roman ,empire2 all these and innumerable others1 visitors from the neighbouring cities1 thronged the streets1 and the whole population seemed to breathe nothing but joy and a sense of exuberant life4 ,in one of the squares there was a hilarious crowd listening1 with loud derision and ironical applause1 to a haggard1 miserably clad1 old man who1 addressing them in ,ionian ,greek1 with the strong guttural accent of the ,asiatics1 stood on one of the high jumping-stones of the pavement1 and spoke with fanatic fervour of the nameless sinfulness of the people of ,pompeii4 ,with him were two or three other persons of the same description1 joining him from time to time in his imprecations against the doomed town4 ,the old man told them that their whole life was rotten through and through1 a permanent lie1 a contradiction to itself1 a sure way to damnation4 ,he thundered against the soldiers jeering at him in the crowd1 calling them cowards1 butchers1 wretches1 and the sinners of all sinners4 ,he sneered at one of the priests of ,isis present in the crowd1 telling the people that there was only one true belief1 and no other4 ,the more the old man talked1 the more the crowd laughed at him2 and when a ,greek philosopher1 who happened to be there1 interpellated and elegantly refuted the old man in a manner approved by the rules of the prevalent school of rhetoric and dialectics1 the crowd cheered the philosopher1 and the more accomplished amongst the bystanders said to one another3 ,this old man is a mere charlatan1 or an impostor2 it's waste of time to take him seriously4 ,one man alone1 in the whole crowd1 a shy and retiring disciple of ,apollonius of ,tyana1 waited until the crowd had dispersed1 and then walking up to the old man1 asked him what sect of ,cynics he belonged to4 ,the old man said3 ,i am no ,cynic2 ,i am a ,christian4 ,thereupon the disciple of ,apollonius took the old man's hand1 pressed it with emotion1 kissed him1 and turning away from him1 walked off1 plunged in deep thought4 ,a minute later the supramundane light over ,pompeii disappeared1 and the ,assembly of the gods and heroes was again in the mild rays of ,selene4 99 99 99 99 99 ,can anyone here1 continued ,plato1 deny that that crowd together with the philosopher was quite mistaken in their appreciation of the eccentric old man1 and that the silent pupil of ,apollonius alone was right8 ,cynics and ,eccentrics have at all times been the forerunners of vast popular movements4 ,the flagellants1 the ,beguins and ,lollards1 and countless other ,cynics in the latter half of the ,middle ,ages preceded the ,reformation4 ,and was not the ,french ,revolution1 or the vastest effort at realising ,ideals ever made by the little ones down here1 preceded by a ,cynic and his pamphlets1 by ,jean ,jacques ,rousseau8 ,no ,greek town would have endured within its walls a youth so completely shattered in all his moral build1 as was ,rousseau4 ,he was thoroughly and hopelessly demoralised in character1 dcousu and eccentric in thought1 and badly tutored in point of knowledge4 ,the clever woman that was his protectress1 mistress1 and guide1 and who displayed a marvellous capacity for devising jobs and an inexhaustible resourcefulness in turning things and persons to practical use1 could yet never discover any usefulness in ,jean ,jacques4 ,he wrote1 later on1 novels1 political treatises1 botanical ones1 musical ones4 ,in truth he never wrote a novel2 he wrote nothing but pamphlets2 stirring1 wild1 eccentric1 enchanting pamphlets4 ,he was not1 like ,beaumarchais1 a pamphleteer and yet a writer of a real1 and immortal comedy1 itself a political pamphlet4 ,rousseau was a writing stump-orator doing anticipative yeoman's work for the ,revolution4 ,so are all the ,cynics4 ,so are ,ibsen1 ,tolstoy2 so is ,shaw4 ,their dramas may be1 say are no dramas at all2 their novels may be1 say are no novels at all2 their serious treatises are neither serious nor treatises2 and yet they are1 and always will be great effectological centres4 ,they attack the whole fabric of the extant civilisation2 by this one move they rally round them both the silent and the loud enemies of ,,what ,,is1 and the eager friends of what ,,ought ,,to ,,be4 ,of these malcontents there always is a great number2 especially in times of prolonged peace4 ,a war1 a real1 good national war would immediately sweep away all these social malcontents4 ,that's why the leaders of the ,cynics1 and more especially ,tolstoy and ,shaw1 hate war4 ,it is their mar-feast1 their kill-joy2 their microbes do not prosper in times of war4 ,without the fatal and all but universal peace of the period from #ej ,a4,d4 to #aij ,a4,d41 ,christianity could never have made any headway in the ,roman ,empire2 just as we got rid of our ,cynics by the second ,athenian ,empire and its great wars4 ,this1 then1 is in my opinion the true perspective of our modern ,cynics4 ,as literature or truth1 they exhibit little of value1 except that ,shaw appears to me 7--if a ,greek may be allowed to pass judgment on such a matter--7 to be the only one amongst living writers in ,england who has real literary splendour in his style4 ,as men1 however1 exercising an effect on a possible social ,revolution1 these writers are of the utmost importance4 ,or to repeat it in my terms3 alethologically nil or nearly so1 effectologically very important or interesting2 this is the true perspective of writers like ,tolstoy1 ,shaw1 and other modern ,cynics4 ,their influence is not on ,thought1 nor on ,art1 but on ,action4 ,they may eventually1 if ,mars will continue trifling with wood-nymphs and other well-intended cordials1 become a great power4 ,they may beget ,neo-,stoics1 who may beget ,neo-,christians4 ,they themselves may then appear only as the tiny drum-pages running in front or beside the real fighters in battle4 ,yet their importance will be little impaired thereby4 ,the ,church ,fathers have frequently endeavoured to honour me with the name of one of the lay protagonists of ,christianity4 ,but ,i know much better than that4 ,the true protagonists were ,antisthenes or ,diogenes2 and that is why the ,roman ,catholic ,church has at no time countenanced me4 ,and just as we now do not mind the jokes1 burlesques and boutades of ,diogenes any more1 admitting freely1 as we do1 that behind them was the aurora borealis of a new creed1 a new movement1 a new world2 even so we must not mind the grotesque boutades of ,tolstoy1 ,ibsen1 ,shaw1 ,anatole1 and other modern ,cynics1 for behind them is the magnetic fulguration of new electric currents in the social world4 ,this1 the public indistinctly feel2 that's why they continue to read and criticise or revile these men4 ,the public feels that while there may not be much in what these men yield for the present1 the future1 possibly1 is theirs4 ,the little ones below do not as yet know1 that there is no future2 nor that all that is or can be1 has long been4 ,therefore they do not turn to us who might point out to them what things are driving at2 but they want the oldest things in ever new forms4 ,we1 however1 know that plus cela change1 plus c'est la mme chose1 as one of the modern ,athenians in ,paris has put it4 ,do not frown on me1 ,heraclitus2 ,i well know that you hold the very reverse1 and that you would say3 'plus c'est la mme chose1 plus cela change4' ,i have gladly accepted that in my earthly time when ,i made a sharp distinction between phenomena and super-phenomena1 or noumena4 ,but ,i do no longer make such a distinction4 ,we are above time4 ,we ,hellenes are alive to-day as we were over two thousand years ago4 ,we still think aloud or on papyrus the most beautiful and the truest thoughts of men4 ,have we not but quite lately sent down for one of us to while amongst us for ever8 ,he too began as a ,cynic4 ,but having learnt the inanity of the so-called 'future1' he rose above time and space1 and soared on the wings of eagle concepts to the heights where we welcome him4 ,he has just entered the near port in a boat rowed by the nymphs of ,circe4 ,we cannot close our meeting in a more condign fashion than by asking ,hebe to offer him the goblet of welcome4 ,the eyes of all present turned to the shore1 where a man of middle age1 who had evidently regained his former vigour1 walked up to the steps of the amphitheatre4 ,when he came quite near to the ,assembly1 ,diogenes exclaimed3 ,hail to thee1 ,frederick ,nietzsche6 ,,the ,,third ,,night ,,alcibiades ,,on ,,women ,,in ,,england ,in the third night the gods and heroes assembled at ,venice4 ,where the ,canal ,grande almost disappears in the sea1 there on mystic gondolas the divine ,assembly met in the town of ,love and ,passion1 at the whilom centre of ,power wedded to ,beauty4 ,it was a starlit night of incomparable charm4 ,the ,canal ,grande1 with its majestic silence2 the dark yet clearly outlined ,palaces surrounding the ,canal like beautiful women forming a procession in honour of a triumphant hero2 the grave spires of hundreds of churches standing like huge sentinels of the town of millions of secrets never revealed1 and vainly searched for in her vast archives2 and last not least the invisible ,past hovering sensibly over every stone of the unique city2 all this contributed ever new charms to the meeting of the gods and heroes at ,venice4 ,zeus1 not unforgetful of the ,eternal ,feminine1 asked ,alcibiades to entertain the ,assembly with his adventures amongst the women of ,england4 ,alcibiades thereupon rose and spake as follows3 ,o ,zeus and the other gods and heroes1 ,i am still too much under the fascination of the women with whom ,i have spent the last twelve months1 to be in a position to tell you with becoming calmness what kind of beings they are4 ,in my time ,i knew the women of over a dozen ,greek states1 and many a woman of the ,barbarians4 ,yet not one of them was remotely similar to the women of ,england4 ,i will presently relate what ,i observed of the beauty of these northern women4 ,but first of all1 it seems to me1 ,i had better dwell upon one particular type of womanhood which ,i have never met before except when once1 eight hundred years ago1 ,i travelled in company with ,abelard through a few towns of ,medival ,france4 ,that type is what in ,england they call the middle-class woman4 ,she is not always beautiful1 and yet might be so frequently1 were her features not spoilt by her soul4 ,she is the most bigoted1 the most prejudiced1 and most intolerant piece of perverted humanity that can be imagined4 ,the first time ,i met her ,i asked her how she felt that day4 ,to this she replied1 ',sir-r-r6' with flashing eyes and sinking cheeks4 ,when ,i then added3 ',i hope1 madame1 you are well8'--she looked at me even more fiercely and uttered3 ',sir-r-r6' ,being quite unaware of the reason of her indignation1 ,i begged to assure her that it gave me great pleasure to meet her4 ,thereupon she got up from her seat and exclaimed in a most tragic manner3 ',si-r-r-r1 you are no gentleman66' ,now1 ,i have been shown out1 in my time1 from more than one lady's room2 but there always was some acceptable reason for it4 ,in this case ,i could not so much as surmise what crime ,i had committed4 ,on asking one of my ,english friends1 ,i learnt that ,i ought to have commenced the conversation with remarks on the weather4 ,unless conversation is commenced in that way it will never commend itself to that class of women in ,england4 ,it is undoubtedly for that reason1 ,zeus1 that you have given ,england four different seasons indeed1 but all in the course of one and the same day4 ,but for this meteorological fact1 conversation with middle-class people would have become impossible4 ,the women of that class have an incessant itch for indignation2 unless they feel shocked at least ten times a day1 they cannot live4 ,accordingly1 everything shocks them2 they are afflicted with permanent shockingitis4 ,tell her that it is two o'clock ,p4,m41 and she will be shocked4 ,tell her you made a mistake1 and that it was only half-past one o'clock1 and she will be even more shocked4 ,tell her ,adam was the first man1 and she will scream with indignation2 tell her she had only one mother1 and she will send for the police4 ,the experience of over two thousand years amongst all the nations in and out of ,europe has not enabled me to find a topic1 nor the manner of conversation agreeable or acceptable to an ,english middle-class woman4 ,at first ,i thought that she was as puritanic in her virtue as she was rigid and forbidding in appearance4 ,one of them was unusually pretty and ,i attempted to please her4 ,my efforts were in vain1 until ,i found out that she took me for a ,greek from ,soho ,square1 which in ,london is something like the poor quarters of our ,pirus4 ,she had never heard of ,athens or of ancient history1 and she believed that ,joan of ,arc was the daughter of ,noah4 ,when ,i saw that1 ,i dropped occasionally the remark that my uncle was ,lord ,pericles1 and that the ,king of ,sparta had reasons to hide from me his wife4 ,this did it at once4 ,she changed completely4 ,everything ,i said was 'interesting4' ,when ,i said1 ',wet to-day1' she swore that it was a capital joke4 ,she admired my very gloves4 ,she never tired asking me questions about the 'swell set4' ,i told her all that ,i did not know4 ,the least man of my acquaintance was a lord2 my friends were all viscounts and marquesses2 my dog was the son of a dog in the ,king's kennels2 my motor was one in which three earls and their wives had broken eleven legs of theirs4 ,these broken legs brought me very much nearer to my goal2 and when finally ,i apprised her that ,i had hopelessly spoilt my digestion at the wedding meal of the ,duke of ,d',ontexist1 she implored me not to trifle any longer with her feelings4 ,i stopped trifling4 ,this experience1 ,alcibiades continued1 did much to enlighten me about what was behind all that forbidding exterior of the middle-class woman4 ,i discovered ,eve in the ,medival form of womanhood4 ,i was reminded of the ,spartan women who1 at the first meeting1 seemed so proud1 unapproachable and ,amazonian2 at the second meeting they had lost some of their prohibitive temper2 and at the third meeting they proved to be women1 and nothing but women after all4 ,honestly1 ,i preferred the ,english middle-class woman in her first stage4 ,it suited the somewhat rigid style of her beauty much better4 ,in the last or sentimental stage she was much less interesting4 ,her tenderness was flabby or childish4 ,then she cried after every rendez-vous4 ,that annoyed me considerably4 ,one evening ,i could not help asking her whether she did not feel like sending five pounds of conscience-money to the ,chancellor of the ,exchequer4 ,she drew the line on that1 and cried more profusely4 ,whereupon ,i proposed to send fifty pounds of conscience-money and to be released of any further tears4 ,this seemed to pacify and to console her2 and thus we parted4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a few days after ,i had been relieved of my first lady friend in ,england1 ,alcibiades continued1 ,i made the acquaintance of a girl whose age ,i was unable to determine4 ,she said she was twenty-nine years old4 ,however1 ,i soon found that all unmarried girls d'un certain ge in ,england are exactly twenty-nine years old4 ,she was not without certain attractions4 ,she had read much1 spoke fluently1 had beautiful auburn hair and white arms4 ,in her technical terms1 which she used very frequently1 she was not very felicitous4 ,she repeatedly mixed up bigotry with bigamy1 or with trigonometry4 ,my presence did not seem to affect her very much1 and after two or three calls ,i discovered that she was in a chronic state of rebellion against society and law at large4 ,she held that women were in absolute serfdom to men1 and that unless women were given the most valuable of rights1 that is1 the suffrage1 neither women nor men could render the commonwealth what it ought to be4 ,i told her that shortly after my disappearance from the political stage of ,athens1 about twenty-three centuries ago1 the women of that town1 together with those of other towns1 clamoured for the same object4 ',what8' she exclaimed4 ',do you mean to say that suffragettes were already known in those olden times8' ,i assured her that all that she had told me about the aims and arguments of herself and her friends was as old as the comedies of ,aristophanes4 ,that seemed to have a strange effect upon her4 ,i noticed that what she believed to be the novelty of the movement constituted really its greatest charm for her4 ,she had thought that suffragettism was the very latest fashion1 in every way brand new4 ,but after a time she recovered and said3 ',very well2 if our objects and aims are as old as all that1 they are sure to be even more solidly founded in reason than ,i thought they were4' ,reason1 ,right1 ,equity1 and ,fairness were her stock-in-trade4 ,she was the daughter of ,reason2 the wife of ,right2 the mother of ,equity2 and the mother-in-law of ,fairness4 ,it was in vain that ,i told her that this world was not held together by ,reason or ,right alone1 but also by ,unreason and ,wrongs4 ,she scoffed at my remarks1 and asked me to come to one of her speeches in ,hyde ,park on one of the next ,sundays4 ,i came4 ,there was a huge crowd1 counting by the hundreds of thousands4 ,my lady friend stood on a waggon in the midst of about half-a-dozen other women1 who all had preferred single blessedness to coupled bliss4 ,they were1 of course1 each of them twenty-nine years old2 and yet their accumulated ages brought one comfortably back to the times of ,queen ,elizabeth4 ,when my friend's turn came1 she addressed the crowd as follows3 ',men and women4 ,excuse me1 ladies1 beginning my speech in that way4 ,it is mere custom1 the behests of which ,i obey4 ,in my opinion there are no men in this country4 ,there are only cowards and their wives4 ,who but a coward would refuse a woman the most elementary right of citizenship8 ,who but a wretch and a dastardly runaway would deny women a right which is given to the scum of men1 provided they pay a ridiculous sum in yearly taxes8 ,there are no men in this country4' 7,a voice from the people3 ',none for you1 m'um1 evidently6'7 ',i repeat it to you3 there are no men4 ,i will repeat it again4 ,i can never repeat it too frequently4 ,or1 do you call a person a man who is none8 ,the first and chief characteristic of a true man is his love of justice4 ,it is so completely and exclusively his1 that we women do not in the least pretend to share in this his principal privilege4 ',but can the present so-called men be called just8 ,is it justice to deny justice to more than one half of the nation1 to the women8 ,let us women have the suffrage1 so that men1 by thus doing justice1 shall become true men worthy of their suffrage4 ,for are not all their reasonings against our wishes void of any force8 ',they say that the suffrage of women1 by dragging them too much into the political arena1 would defeminise them4 ,pray look at us here assembled4 ,are we unwomanly8 ,do we look as if we had lost any of that down which hovers over the soul of domesticated women as does the nap on a peach8' 7,stormy applause47 ',thanks1 many thanks4 ,i knew you would not think so4 ',no1 it is indeed absurd to assume that a waggon can change a woman into a dragon4 ,am ,i changed by entering a 'bus8 ,or by mounting a taxi8 ,why1 then1 should ,i be changed by standing on a waggon8 ,i am no more changed by it1 than the waggon is changed by me4' 7,a voice3 ',good old waggon6'7 ',we want to have a share in legislation4 ,there are a hundred subjects regarding which we are better informed than are men4 ,take food-adulteration--who knows more about it than we do8 ,take intemperance--who drinks more in secret than we do8 ,take the law of libel and slander--who libels and slanders more than we do8 ,who can possibly possess more experience about it8 ',look at history4 ,repeatedly there have been periods when a number of queens and empresses proved to be more efficient than men4 ,politics1 especially foreign policy1 spells simply lies and dissimulation4 ,who can do that better than ourselves8 ,people say that if we women get the suffrage1 the ,house of ,commons would soon be filled with mere women4 ,let us grant that1 for argument's sake4 ,would the difference be really so great8 ,are there not women in trousers8 ,and are there not more trousers than men8 ',nowadays most men cry themselves hoarse over ,peace1 ,arbitration1 ,international ,good ,will1 and similar nostrums4 ,could we women not do that too8 ,i ask you men present1 could we not do that as well8 ,the men of this country think that they will bring about the millennium by preaching and spreading teetotalism1 ,christian ,science1 vegetarianism1 or simple lifeism4 ,how ridiculous and petty4 ',look at the isms we propose to preach and spread3 7#a7 ,anti-corsetism2 7#b7 ,anti-skirtism2 7#c7 ,anti-bonnetism2 7#d7 ,anti-gloveism2 7#e7 ,anti-necktieism2 7#f7 ,anti-cigarettism2 and finally 7#g7 ,anti-antiism4 ',on these seven hills of antis1 or if you prefer it1 on these seven ant-hills1 which are in reality anti-ills1 we shall build our ,new ,rome1 the rummiest ,rome that ever was1 and more eternal than the town of the ,csars and the ,popes4 ,give us the suffrage6 ,do you not see how serious we are about it8 ,we know very well that the various classes of men obtained the suffrage only by means of great fights in which1 in some countries1 untold thousands of men were killed4 ,but can you seriously think of putting us women to similar straits8 ',evidently1 what men had to fight for in bitter earnest1 ought to be given to women in jest as a mere gift4 ,do give us the suffrage6 ,do not be pedantic nor naughty4 ,we mean it very seriously2 therefore give it to us as a joke1 by sheer politeness1 and as a matter of good manners4 ',come1 my male friends1 be good boys2 let me brush your coat1 fix the necktie in the proper shape and pour a little brilliantine on your moustaches4 ,there6 ,that's a nice little boy4 ,and now open the safe of the nation and give us quick the right of rights1 the might of mights1 the very thing that you men have been fighting for ever since ,magna ,charta in #abae1 give us the suffrage as an incidental free gift4 ',if you do so1 we will pass a law that all barbers' shops shall be in the soft1 pleasant hands of young she-barbers4 ,think of the downy satisfaction that this will give you6 ,think of the placid snoozes in a barber's chair when your face is soaped1 shaven and sponged by mellow hands6 ,is it not a dear little enjoyment8 ,now1 look here my male friends1 this and similar boons we shall shower upon you1 provided you give us the suffrage4 ',nay1 we shall before everything else 7provided we have the suffrage67 pass a law abolishing breach-of-promise cases4' 7,endless hurrahs from all sides--,band--,fire-works--,st ,vitus' ,dances1 until the whole immense crowd breaks out in a song ',she is a jolly good maiden1 etc4'7 ',thanks1 you are very kind4 ,yes1 we mean to abolish breach-of-promise cases4 ,consider what advantages that would imply for you4 ,a man will be able to flirt round five different corners at a time1 without risking anything4 ,he will be able to practise letter-writing in all the colours of the rainbow1 without in the least jeopardising his situation1 purse or expectations4 ,he will be in a position to amuse himself thoroughly1 freely1 everywhere1 and at any time4 ,what makes you men so stiff1 so tongue-tied1 so pokery1 but the dread of a breach-of-promise case4 ,once that dread is removed by the abolition of such cases1 you will be amiable1 great orators1 full of charming abandon1 and too lovely for words4 ,as a natural consequence1 women will be more in love with you than ever before4 ,your conquests in ,sexland will be countless4 ,you will be like ,alcibiades1--irresistible1 universally victorious4 ,now1 could we offer you anything more tempting8 ',i know1 of course1 that outwardly you affect to be no ladies' men4 ,but pray1 entre nous1 are you not in reality just the reverse8 ,man is polygamous4 ,we women do not in the least care for men1 and if all my female contemporaries should die out1 leaving me alone in the world with #fjj1jjj1jjj men1 ,i should myself speedily die with boredom4 ,what are men here for but as mere cards in our game of one woman against the other8 ,if ,i cannot martyrise a little the heart of my female friend by alienating her man from her1 what earthly use has her man for me8 ',but you men1 you are quite different4 ,you do wish that all the women1 at any rate all the young and beautiful women1 shall be at your order4 ,this of course we cannot legislate for you4 ,but we can do the next best thing3 we can abolish the chief obstacle in your way3 the breach-of-promise cases4 ,this we promise to do1 provided you give us the suffrage4 ,you are1 however1 much mistaken if you think that that is all we have in store for you4 ,far from it4 ',if you give us the franchise1 we pledge ourselves never to publish a novel or a drama4' 7,applause like an earthquake--men embrace one another--elderly gentlemen cry with joy--a clergyman calls upon people to pray--in the skies a rainbow appears47 ',yes1 although with a breaking heart1 yet we will make this immense sacrifice on the altar of our patriotism3 we will henceforth not publish any novels4 ,i cannot say that we will not write any4 ,this would be more than ,i or any other woman could promise4 ,we must write novels4 ,we are subject to a writing itch that is quite beyond our control4 ,the less a woman has to say the more she will write4 ,she must write2 she must write novels4 ',we write1 we publish at present about five novels a day4 ,if you give us the suffrage1 we pledge ourselves not to publish a single novel4' 7,universal cry3 ',give them the suffrage1 for ,god's sake6'7 ',and if you do not give us the suffrage1 we shall publish ten novels a day4' 7,fearful uproar--fierce cries for the police--twenty publishers present are mobbed--,miss ,cora ,morelli present is in imminent danger of life47 ',did ,i say1 ten8 ,what ,i meant to say is1 that if you do not give us the franchise1 we shall publish fifteen novels a day4' 7,revolution--pistol shots--the fire-brigade comes47 ',twenty--thirty--forty novels a day4' 7,the ,big ,ben is howling--the ,thames river floods ,middlesex--the ,house of ,commons suspends the ,habeas ,corpus ,act47 ',or even ten novels every hour4' 7,the ,albert ,memorial leaves its place and takes refuge in the ,imperial ,institute--the crowd1 in despair1 falls on their knees and implores the speaker to have mercy on them--they promise the suffrage1 at once1 or somewhat before that47 ',there6 ,i told you1 we do mean what we mean1 and we have all sorts of means of making you mean what we mean4 ,it is therefore understood that you will give us the franchise1 and we shall stop publishing novels4 ,but should you change your mind and go back on your present promises1 then ,i must warn you that we have in store even more drastic means of forcing your hands4 ,you must not in the least believe that the pressure we can bring to bear upon you is exhausted with the devices just enumerated4 ,there are other devices4 ,but for evident reasons of modesty ,i prefer calling upon my motherly guide1 ,mrs ,pancake1 to tell you more about them4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,with that my tender friend retired1 and up got a middle-aged woman with hard features and much flabby flesh4 ,she was received with mournful silence4 ,she began in a strident voice1 which she accentuated by angular gestures cutting segments out of the air4 ,she said3 ',you have1 ladies and gentlemen1 heard some of the disadvantages that will inevitably be entailed upon you by not granting us what ,justice1 ,equity and our ,costume render a demand that none but barbarians can refuse4 ,i am now going to give you just an inkling of what will befall you should you pertinaciously persist in your obdurate refusal of the franchise to women4 ,we women have made up our minds to the exclusion of any imaginable hesitation1 change1 or vacillation4 ,we shall be firm and unshakable4 ',we have done everything that could be done by way of persuading you4 ,we have published innumerable pamphlets2 we have trodden countless streets in countless processions2 we have been wearing innumerable badges and carrying thousands of flags and standards2 we have screamed1 pushed1 rowdied1 boxed1 scuffled1 gnashed our teeth 7even such as were not originally made for that purpose71 and suffered our skirts to be torn to shreds2 we have petitioned1 waylaid1 interpellated1 ambushed1 bullied and memorialised all the ministers1 all the editors1 all the clergymen1 all the press-men2 we have suffered imprisonment1 fines1 scorn1 ridicule2 we have done1 with the exception of actual fighting1 everything that men have done for the conquest of the suffrage4 ',should all these immense sacrifices not avail us any2 should it all be in vain2 then we the women of this country1 and ,i doubt not those of the other countries too1 will1 as a last resort1 take refuge in the oldest and most powerful ally of our sex4 ,eternal ,time has two constituents3 ,day and ,night4 ,the ,day is man's4 ,the ,night is ours4' 7,deadly silence--men begin looking very serious47 ',the ,night1 ,i repeat it in the sternest manner possible1 the ,night is ours4 ,we grant1 indeed1 that sixteen hours are man's2 but the remaining eight are ours4 ,the stars and the moon2 the darkness and the dream--they are all ours4 ,should you men persist in refusing us the franchise1 you will wake in vain for the moon and the stars and the dream4 ,you will see stars indeed1 but other ones than you expect4 ,we shall be inexorable4 ,no moon any more for you2 neither crescent1 half nor full moon2 neither stars nor milky-way2 neither galaxy nor gallantry4' 7,a salvationist3 ',let us pray6'--,a soldier3 ',hope1 m'um1 that ,saturdays will be off-days8'--,solicitors1 teetotallers1 and three editors of ,zola's collected works3 ',disgraceful6 shocking6'--,a scholar3 ',madame1 that's a chestnut1 ,aristophanes has long proposed that6'--,general uproar--a band of nuns from ,piccadilly hurrah the proposal and raise prices of tickets--,scotland ,yard smiles--the ,daily ,nail kodaks everybody and interviews ,mrs ,pancake on the spot--,mrs ,guard1 the famous writer1 at once founds a counter-,league1 with the motto ',astronomy for the people--,stars and ,stripes free--the ,united ,gates of ,love'--the ,daily ,crony has an attack of moral appendicitis47 99 99 99 99 99 ,i wish1 continued ,alcibiades1 amidst the laughter of the immortals1 ,aristophanes had been present4 ,i assure you that all that he said in his comedies called ,ecclesiazusae and ,lysistrata pale beside the tumultuous scenes caused by the peroration of ,mrs ,pancake4 ,her threat was in such drastic contrast to the stars and moon she personally could exhibit to the desires of men1 that the comic effect of it became at times almost unbearable4 ,while the pandemonium was at its height a stentorian voice invited all present to another platform where another woman was holding forth on ,free ,love and ,free ,marriage4 ,i forthwith repaired to the place1 and heard what was in every way a most interesting speech delivered by a woman who consisted of a ton of bones and an ounce of flesh4 ,she was between forty and seventy-nine4 ,she talked in a tone of conviction which seemed to come from every corner of her personal masonry4 ,her gestures were1 if ,i may say so1 as strident as her voice1 which came out with a peculiar gust of pectoral wind1 unimpeded1 as it was1 by the fence of too numerous teeth4 ,she said3 ',gentlemen1 all that you have heard over there from the platforms of the suffragettes is1 to put it mildly1 the merest rubbish4 ,we women do not want the suffrage4 ,what we want is quite another thing4 ,all our misery since the days of ,eve comes from one silly1 absurd1 and criminal institution1 and from that alone4 ,abolish that cesspool of depravity2 that hotbed of social gangrene2 that degradation of men and women2 and we shall be all happy and contented for ever4 ',that institution2 that cancerous hotbed2 that degradation is3 ,marriage4 ,as long as we shall endure this scandalous bondage and prostitution of the most sacred sentiments and desires of human beings1 even so long will our social wretchedness last4 ',abolish marriage4 ',it has neither sense1 nor object1 nor right2 it is the most hapless aberration of humanity4 ,how can you uphold such a monstrous thing8 ',just consider3 ,i do not know1 and do not care to know what other nations are like2 ,i only care for my great nation1 for ,england1 for ,englishmen4 ,now1 can anyone here present 7or here absent1 for the matter of that71 seriously contend that an ,englishman is by nature or education fit for marriage8 ,why1 not one in ten thousand has the slightest aptitude for it4 ',an ,englishman is an island1 a solitary worm1 morally a hermit1 socially a bear1 humanly a ,cyclop4 ,he hates company1 including his own4 ,the idea that any person should intrude upon his hallowed circles for more than a few minutes is revolting to him4 ,when he is ill he suffers most from the inquiries of friends about his condition4 ,when he is successful he is too proud to stoop to talking with anyone under the rank of a lord4 ,when he is unsuccessful1 he takes it for granted that nobody desires to speak to him4 ,he builds his house after his own character3 rooms do not communicate4 ,he chooses his friends among people that talk as little as possible and call on him once a year4 ,any remark about his person he resents most bitterly4 ,tell him1 ever so mildly1 that the colour of his necktie is cryingly out of harmony with the colour of his waistcoat1 and he will hate you for three years4 ',and you mean to tell me1 gentlemen1 that such a creature is fit for marriage8 ,that is1 fit for a condition of things in which a person1 other than himself1 claims the right to be in the same room with him at any given hour of the day or the night2 to pass remarks on his necktie1 or his cuffs1 or even on his tobacco2 to talk1 ay1 to talk to him for an hour1 to twit him1 or chaff him--good heavens1 one might just as well think of asking the ,archbishop of ,canterbury by telephone whether he would not come to the next bar round the corner for a glass of ,bass4 ',and as to other still more personal claims of tenderness and intimacy on the part of the wife1 such as embraces and kisses1 one shudders to think how any woman may ever hope to attempt doing them without imminent risk to her life4 ',fancy a wife trying to kiss her legal husband6 ,he1 prouder of his collar and cuffs than of his banking account1 to stand calmly and willingly an assault on the immaculate correctness of the said collar and cuffs6 ',it passes human comprehension4 ,the mere idea thereof is unthinkable4 ',perhaps in the first few weeks of married life4 ,but after six months2 after a year1 or two--by what stretch of imagination shall one reach the possibility of such an event8 ,after six months1 he is indifferent to the entire astronomy of his wife2 after a year or so1 he hates her4 ,it is not so much that he wants another woman1 or another man's wife1 or another wife's man2 what he wants is to be left alone4 ',he has long since shaken off the ,state1 the ,church1 the ,army1 and1 politically1 the ,nobility4 ,nothing can be more evident than that he wants to shake off the last of the old shackles3 ,marriage4 ,his motive is3 shekels1 but no shackles4 ',some incomprehensibly modest people have proposed marriage to last ten years only4 ,it appears1 they contend1 that the critical period of the modern marriage shows itself at the end of ten years4 ,the scandals that are usually cropping up at the end of that period1 they say1 might very well be avoided by terminating marriage legally at the end of the tenth year4 ,people proposing such stuff clearly manifest their utter inability to see through the true character of modern marriage4 ',if marriages were to last only ten years1 then be sure that the said critical period with its inevitable scandals would set in at the end of the fifth year4 ,the cause1 the real cause of these scandals is not in the length of time1 but in the very nature of marriage4 ,if this iniquitous and barbarous contract were to last only for five years1 then its critical period and its scandals would appear at the end of two years4 ,and by a parity of reasoning1 if marriage were to last one year only1 it would by its inherent vice come to grief at the end of six months4 ',the only cure for marriage is to abolish it4 ,does marriage not demand the very quality that not one ,english person in a hundred thousand possesses3 yieldingness8 ,or can anyone deny that no ,english person has ever really meant to admit that he or she was wrong8 ',they are all of them infallible4 ,people write such a lot about the hatred of ,popery in ,english history4 ,what nonsense4 ,english people do not hate ,popery2 they despise the idea that there should be only one infallible ,pope1 whereas they know that in ,england alone there are at present over thirty millions of such infallibles4 ,this being so1 how can marriage be a success8 ',or take it1' the ,free ,love lady continued1 'from another standpoint4 ,most ,englishmen enter married life with little if any experience of womanhood4 ,only the other day a young man of twenty-five1 who was just about to marry1 asked in my presence whether it was likely that a woman gave birth to one child early in the month of ,may1 and to the other in the following month of ,june8 ,he thought that ,the ,times instalment system applied to all good things4 ',other young men inquire seriously about the strategy of marriage1 and the famous song in the ,belle of ,new ,york1 in which the girl asks her fianc ,when we are married what will you do8 was possible only in countries of ,anglo-,saxon stock4 ,in ,latin countries the operette could not have been finished in one evening on account of the interminable laughter of the public4 ,in ,london nobody turned a hair1 as they say4 ,half of the men present had1 in their time1 asked the same question of themselves or of their doctors4 ',now if there is one thing more certain than another in the whole matter of marriage it is this1 that the inexperienced fianc generally makes the worst husband4 ,being familiar only with the ways and manners of men1 he misunderstands1 misconstrues1 and misjudges most of the actions or words of his young wife4 ,he is positively shocked at her impetuous tenderness1 and takes many a manifestation of her love for him as mere base flattery or as hypocrisy4 ,not infrequently he ceases treating her as his wife1 and goes on living with her as his sister2 and1 since the wife1 more loyal to nature1 rarely omits recouping herself1 her husband acts the part of certain gentlemen of ,constantinople4 ,it is thus that the famous mnage trois does not1 properly speaking1 exist in ,england4 ,in ,england it is always a mnage deux4 ',if1 then1 instead of continuing marriage2 if1 instead of maintaining an institution so absurd and so contrary to the nature of an ,englishman1 we dropped it altogether2 if1 instead of compulsory wedding ceremonies1 we introduced that most sacred of all things3 ,,free ,,love2 the advantages accruing to the nation as a whole1 and to each person constituting that nation1 would be immense4 ',free ,love1 ay3 that is the only solution4 ,nature knows what she is after4 ,the blue-eyed crave the black-eyed ones2 the fair-haired desire the dark-haired2 the tall ones the small2 the thin ones the thick2 the unlettered ones the lettered unfettered ones4 ,this is ,nature4 ',if these affinities are given free scope1 the result will be a nation of giants and heroes4 ,affinities produce ,infinities4 ,free ,trade in wedlock is the great panacea4 ,since the only justifiable ground for marriage is--the child1 how dare one marry anyone else than the person with whom he or she is most likely to have the finest babe8 ,that person is clearly indicated by ,nature4 ,how1 then1 can ,society1 ,law1 or the ,church claim the right to interfere in the choice8 ',i know that many of you will say3 ,oh1 if men should take their wives only from ,free ,love1 they would take a different one every quarter4 ,but if you come to think of it1 it is not so at all4 ,if men took their wives out of ,free ,love1 they could not so much as think of taking another wife every quarter4 ,for1 which other wife could they take8 ,there would be none left for them1 since all the other women would1 by the hypothesis1 long have been taken up by their ,free ,lovers4 ,moreover1 if a man takes a wife out of ,free ,love1 he sticks to her just because he loves her4 ,had he not loved her1 he would not have taken her2 and if he should cease loving her1 he would find no other woman to join him1 owing to his proved fickleness4 ',last1 not least1 women and men would form elaborate societies for the prevention of frivolous breaches of faith4 ,at present no woman has a serious interest in watching another woman's man4 ,it would be quite different in ,free-,love-,land4 ,the unofficial supervision and control of men and women would be as rigorous as in monastic orders4 ,as a man will pay off debts contracted at a card-table with infinitely greater anxiety than any ordinary debt of his to a tailor or a grocer1 just because such gambling debts are not actionable2 even so conjugal debts would1 in ,free-,love-,land1 be discharged with a punctuality that now is practically unknown4 ',the commonplace assertion that legal marriage preserves men and women in a virtuous life has been refuted these six thousand years4 ,to the present day one is not able to deny the truth of what once a ,turkish woman replied to a ,christian lady4 ,the latter asked the ,oriental3 ,how can you tolerate the fact that your husband has at the same time and in the same house three other wives of his8 ,the ,turkish lady replied3 ,please1 do not excite yourself unduly4 ,the only difference between me and you is this1 that ,i know the names of my rivals1 and you do not4 ',in ,free-,love-,land alone is there virtue4 ,men and women select freely1 obeying only the dictates of infallible ,nature4 ,the result is order1 health1 joy1 and efficiency4 ,how can any person of sense believe in the present marriage systems1 when one considers the countless lives of old maids sacrificed to the ,moloch of modern legal monogamy8 ',in ,england there are about four times more old maids than in any other country2 except in ,new ,england1 in the ,united ,states1 where every second woman is born an old maid4 ,has anybody ever seriously pondered over the great danger to ,society and ,state implied in an excessive number of old maids8 ,i leave it to you1 and ,i dare say to everyone of you who has1 no doubt1 bitterly suffered at the hands of some one old maid in his or her family4 ',old maids are either angels of goodness1 or devils in human form2 the real proportion of either must be left to the ,lord ,chancellor to decide4 ,but who1 or what produces old maids8 ,our legal monogamy4 ,give us ,free ,love1 and you shall have heard the last word of old maids4 ,refuse ,free ,love1 and we shall have to form our old maids into regiments and send them against the ,germans4 ,plato said that the unsatisfied womb of a woman wanders about in all her body like a ravenous animal and devours everything on his path4 ,our present marriage system makes more victims than victors4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,the good bag of bones wanted to continue in the same strain1 but was stopped by a young policeman who threatened to take her into custody unless she discontinued her oratory4 ,she threatened to love him freely2 whereupon he ran away as speedily as he could manage1 but was at once followed by the valiant she-orator1 who nearly overtook him1 crying all the time ',i love you freely'--',i love you freely4' ,the whole crowd followed1 howling1 screaming1 laughing1 and singing songs of ,free ,love4 ,so ended the discourse on ,free ,love4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a few weeks later1 continued ,alcibiades1 ,i made the acquaintance of what they call a society lady4 ,she was1 of course1 a specialist4 ,she had found out that her physical attractions were of a kind to show off best at the moment of entering a crowded room4 ,she was1 to use the phraseology of the chef1 an entre beauty4 ,her name was ,entra4 ,at the moment she entered a salon1 she gave1 just for a few minutes1 the impression of being strikingly handsome4 ,she walked well1 and the upper part of her head1 her hair1 forehead1 and eyes were very pretty4 ,she knew that on entering a room1 the upper part of the head is precisely the one object of general attention4 ,this she utilised in the most methodic manner4 ,she entered with an innocent smile and lustrous eyes4 ,the effect was decidedly pretty4 ,in order to heighten it she always came late4 ,her cheeks1 which were ugly2 her shoulders1 which were uglier2 her arms1 which were still uglier1 were all cleverly disguised or made to appear secondary1 and as if dominated by her big eyes4 ,she was very successful4 ,most men considered her beautiful2 and women were happy that her principal effect did not last very long4 ,she knew some fifteen phrases by heart1 which were meant to meet the conversation of the fifteen different species into which she had1 for daily use1 divided the different men she met in society4 ,each of these phrases gave her the appearance of much esprit and of an intelligent interest in the subject4 ,she did not understand them at all2 but she never mixed them up1 thanks to her instinct1 which was infallible4 ,the last time she had done or said anything spontaneously or naively was on the day she left her nursery4 ,ever since she was the mere manager of her words and acts4 ,in everything there was a cool intention4 ,as a matter of fact she was meant by ,nature to be a salesgirl at ,whiteley's4 ,failing this1 she sold her presence1 her smiles1 her manners to the best social advantage4 ,a rabid materialist1 she always pretended to live for nothing but ideals4 ,sickened by music1 she always gave herself out to be an enthusiast for ,wagner4 ,like many women that have no natural talent for intellectual pursuits1 she was most eager to read serious books1 to attend serious lectures1 and to engage a conversation on philosophy4 ,i met her in my quality as ,prince of ,syracuse4 ,she first thought that ,syracuse was the name of my father2 when ,i had explained to her that ,syracuse was the name of a famous town in ,sicily1 she asked me whether ,i belonged to the great family whose motto was qui s'excuse1 s'iracuse4 ,on my answering in the negative1 she exclaimed3 ',but surely you belong at least to the ,maffia8 ,oh do1 it would be so interesting6' ,in order to please her ,i at once belonged to that society of secret assassins4 ,however1 ,i soon noticed that she thought the ,maffia was the ,sicilian form of a society for patriotic ,mafficking4 ,when we became a little more intimate1 she told me that ,i was never to speak of anything else than ,syracuse4 ,that would give me a certain cachet1 as she put it1 and distinguish me from the others4 ,accordingly ,i placed all my stories and occasional sallies of talk at ,syracuse4 ,i was the ,syracusan4 ,she swore my accent was ,syracusan1 and that my entire personality breathed ,syracusan air4 ,in society she presented me as a member of a curious race1 the ,syracusans1 in ,sicily1 close to the ,riviera4 ,one day she surprised me with the question whether the men of ,syracuse were still in the habit of marrying two women at a time4 ,she had read in some book of the double marriage of ,dionysus the ,elder in the fourth century ,b4,c4 ,i calmed her in that respect4 ,i said that since that time things had changed at ,syracuse4 ,on the other hand1 ,i was unable to make out whether she was a divorced virgin1 or a deceased sister's wife4 ,it was not clear at all4 ,when conversing with me alone1 she was as dry as a ,nonconformist2 but in a drawing-room1 full of people1 she showered upon me all the sweets of passionate flirtation4 ,one day ,i told her that ,i had won great victories in the chariot races at ,olympia4 ,she looked at me with a knowing smile and said3 ',come1 come1 why did ,i not read about it in the ,daily ,nail8' and1 showing me the inside of her hat1 she pointed at a slip of paper in it1 on which was printed3 ',i am somewhat of a liar myself4' ,i assured her that ,i had really won great prizes at ,olympia4 ',were they in the papers8' she asked4 ,i said1 we had no papers at that time4 ',no papers8' she exclaimed4 ',why1 were you like the negroes8 ,no papers6 ,what will you tell me next8 ,had you perhaps no top-hats either8 ,do you mean to tell me that this great poet of yours--what you call him8--ah1 ,lord ,homer1 had no top-hat8' ,i assured her that we had no hats whatever4 ',oh1 ,i see1' she said1 'you were founded like the blue boys1--,i see4 ,but surely you wore gloves8' ,on my denying it1 she turned a little pale4 ',no gloves either8 ,then ,i must ask you only one more thing3 had you no shoes either8' ',no1' ,i said1 calmly1 'some of us1 like ,socrates1 went always barefoot1 others in sandals4' ,she smiled incredulously4 ,i told her that in the heyday of ,athens men in the streets went about over one-third nude4 ,she did not mind the nude1 but she stopped at the word heyday4 ,she asked me3 ',on which day of the year fell your heyday8' ,i did not quite know what to say1 until it flashed upon my mind that she meant 'hay-day4' ,i soon saw ,i was right1 because she added3 ',does going barefoot cure hay-fever8 ,and is that the reason why so many people still talk of ,socrates8' ,i stared at her4 ,was it really possible that she did not know who ,socrates was8 ,i tried to give a short sketch of your life1 ,o ,socrates1 but ,i could not go beyond the time before you were born4 ,for1 when ,i said that your mother had been a midwife1 my lady friend recoiled with an expression of terror4 ',what1' she exclaimed1 'he was the son of a midwife8--a midwife8--,pray1 do not let us talk about such people6 ,i hoped he was at least the son of a baronet4 ,how could you ever endure his company8' ',that was just it1' said ,i1 ',i could not4 ,his charm was so great1 that for fear of neglecting everything else ,i fled from him like a hunted stag4' ',but pray1' she retorted1 'what charm can there be in a son of a midwife8 ,i can imagine some interest in a clever midwife1--but in her son8 ,oh1 that is too absurd for words6' ',my charming friend1' ,i answered1 ',socrates was1 as he frequently remarked it1 himself a sort of midwife1 who never pretended to be parent to a thought1 but only to have helped others to produce them4' ',oh1 is that it1--' she said dryly1 ',socrates did manual services in midwifery8 ,how lost to all shame your women must have been to engage a man in their most delicate moments4 ,i now see why so many of my lady friends deserted a man who had announced lectures on ,plato4 ,he also talked about ,socrates1 and when it became known that ,socrates was a wretched midwife's clerk1 we left the lecture-hall in indignation4 ,fancy that man said he talked about ,plato1 and yet in his discourses he talked about nurseries1 teetotalism1 ,christian ,science and all such things as date only of yesterday1 and of which ,plato could have known nothing4' ',but my lovely ,entra1' ,i interrupted1 ',plato does talk of all these things1 and with a vengeance4' ',how could he talk of them8' she triumphantly retorted4 ',did he ever read the ,daily ,nail or ,ladies' ,wold8' ',no1' ,i said1 'he never did1 which is one of the many reasons of his divine genius4 ,but he does speak of temperance1 and simple life1 and the superman1 and all the other so-called discoveries of this age1 with the full knowledge of a sage who has actually experienced those eccentricities4' ,my fascinating friend could stand it no longer4 ,interrupting me she said3 ',why1 every child knows that ,plato talked of nothing else than of ,platonic love4 ,we all expected to hear about nothing else than that curious love which all of us desire1 if it is not too long insisted upon4 ,we went to the course to revive in ourselves long-lost shivers not only of idealism1 but even of bimetallism1 or as it were the double weight of it4 ',we thought1 since ,plato is evidently named after platinum1 which we know to be the dearest of precious metals1 his philosophy must treat of such emotions as cost us the greatest sacrifice4 ',platonic love is the most comfortable of subjects to talk or think about4 ,it makes you look innocent1 and yet on its brink there are such nicely dreadful possibilities of plunging into delightful abysses4 ,each thing gets two values2 one ,platonic1 the other1--the naughty value4 ,a whole nude arm may be ,platonic2 but a voluptuous wrist peeping out of fine laces may be only--a tonic4 ',now these are precisely the subjects of which we desired to hear in those lectures4 ,instead of which the man said nothing about them1 nothing about that dear ,platonic love2 in fact1 he said that ,plato never speaks of what is now called ,platonic love4 ,and that man calls himself a scholar8 ,why1 my very chamber-maid knows better4 ,the other day she saw the lecturer's photo in a paper and1 smiling in an embarrassed way1 she said to the cook3 ,that's the man what talks at ,cliradge's about miscarriages4 ,was she not right8 ,is not ,platonic love the cause of so many miscarriages1 before1 during1 or after the wedding ceremony8 ',and then1' she added with a gasp1 'we all knew that ,plato was a mystic1 full of that shivery1 half-toney1 gruesomely something or other which makes us feel that even in everyday life we are surrounded by asterisks1 or1 as they also call them1 astral forces4 ,was not ,plato an intimate friend of ,mrs ,blavatsky1 the sister of ,madame ,badarzewska1 who was the composer of ,a ,maiden's ,prayer8 ,there6 why then did that lecturer not talk about palmistry1 auristry1 sorcery1 witchcraft1 and other itch-crafts8 ,not a word about them6 ,we were indignant4 ',a friend of mine1 ,mrs ,oofry ,blazing1 who talks ,french admirably1 and whose teeth are the envy of her nose1 declared3 ,cet homme est un fumiste4 ,of course1 he sold us fumes1 instead of perfumes4 ,one amongst us1 an ,american woman of the third sex1 told the man publicly straight into his face1 and with inimitable delicacy of touch3 ,sir1 what are you here for8 ,quite so2 what was he there for8 ,we wanted ,plato1 and nothing but ,plato4 ,one fairly expected him to begin every sentence with ,p's1 or ,pl's4 ,instead of that he wandered from one subject to another4 ,one day he talked about the general and the particular2 the other day about the particular and the general4 ,but what particular is there in a general1 ,i beg of you8 ,is an admiral not much more important8 ,we do not trouble about the army at all4 ,and then1 and chiefly1 what has a general to do with ,plato8 ,the lectures were not on military matters1 but on the most immaterial matters1 which yet matter materially4 ,but1 of course1 now that you tell me that ,socrates1 ,plato's master1 was a he-midwife1 ,i can very well understand that his modern disciples are philosophical miscarriages6' 99 99 99 99 99 ,the gods laughed heartily1 and ,sappho asked ,plato how he liked the remarks of ,entra4 ,plato smiled and made ,sappho blush by reminding her what the little ones had at all times said of her1 although not a tittle of truth was in it4 ,no ordinary citizen1 nor his wife1 he added1 ever wants to know persons or things as they really are4 ,they only want to know what they imagine or desire to be the truth4 ,this is the reason why so many men before the public take up a definite pose1 the one demanded by the public4 ,this they do1 not out of sheer fatuity1 but of necessity4 ,a king could not afford to sing in public1 no matter how well he sang2 it does not fit the image the public likes to form about a king4 ,in fact1 the better he sang1 the more harm it would do him4 ,i have always impressed the little ones as a mystic1 an enthusiast1 a blessed spirit1 as you ,goethe used to call me4 ,yet my principal aim was ,apollo1 and not ,dionysus2 clearness1 and not the clair-obscur of trances4 ,alcibiades1 whose beautiful head added to the charms of ,venice1 then continued3 ,nothing1 ,o ,plato1 can be truer than your remark4 ,my lady friend was a living example of your statement4 ,to me1 after so many hundreds of experiences1 her made-up little mask was no hindrance1--,i saw through her within less than a week4 ,she was1 at heart1 as dry1 as kippered1 as intentionalist1 and coldly self-conscious as the driest of ,egyptian book-keepers in a great merchant firm at ,corinth4 ,nothing really interested her2 she was only ever running after what she imagined to be the fashion of the moment4 ,what she really wanted was to be the earliest in 'the latest4' ,when she came to the bookshop1 at five in the afternoon1 when all the others came1 she would ask the clerk after the latest fashion in novels4 ,she did that so frequently1 and with such exasperating regularity1 that one day the clerk1 who could stand it no longer1 said to her3 ',madame1 be seated for a few moments--the fashion is just changing4' ,she1 not in the least disconcerted1 eagerly retorted3 ',i say1 is that the latest8' ,the clerk gave notice to leave6 ,one day ,i found her in a very bad humour4 ,when pressed for an explanation1 she told me that just at that moment an elegant funeral was going on1 at which she was most anxious to attend4 ',why1 then1 do you not go8' ,i asked4 ',because1' she replied1 'it is simply impossible4 ,just fancy1 that good woman died of heart failure6' '8'-- ',you cannot see8 ,heart failure8 ,can you imagine anybody to die of heart failure1 when the only correct thing to do is to die of appendicitis8 ,i telephoned in due time to her doctor1 imploring him to declare that she died of that smart disease4 ,but he is a brute4 ,he would not do it4 ,now ,i am for ever compromised by the friendship of that woman4 ,oh how true was the remark of your sage ,salami1 when he said that nobody can be said to be happy before all his friends have died6' ,thereupon the gods and heroes congratulated ,solon upon his change of profession3 having been a sage1 he was now a sausage4 ,the next time ,i saw my lady friend1 ,alcibiades continued1 ,i found her in tears4 ,inquiring after the cause of her distress1 ,i learnt3 ',just imagine6 ,you know my little pet-dog4 ,i bought him of a lady-in-waiting4 ,he has the most exquisite tact and feels happy only in genteel society4 ,an hour ago my maid suddenly left my flat1 and expecting1 as ,i did1 a lady of very high standing1 ,i did a little dusting and cleaning in my room4 ,when my ,toto saw that2 when he watched me actually doing housemaid's work1 he cried bitterly4 ,he could not bear the idea of my demeaning myself with work unfit for a lady4 ,it was really too touching for words4 ,when ,i saw the refined sense of genteeldom in ,toto's eyes1 ,i too began crying4 ,and so we both cried4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,when ,i had lived through several scenes of the character just described1 ,i could not help thinking that we ,athenians were perhaps much wiser than the modern men1 in that we did not allow our women to appear in society4 ,they were1 it is true1 seldom interesting1 nor physically greatly developed4 ,on the other hand they never bored us with types of what these little ones call society ladies4 ,i cannot but remember the exquisite evenings which ,i spent at the house of ,critias1 where one of our wittiest hetairai1 or emancipated women1 imitated the false manners1 hypocrisy and inane pomp of the society ladies of ,thebes in ,egypt4 ,we laughed until we could see no longer4 ,what ,leontion1 that hetaira1 represented was exactly what ,i observed in my lady friend in ,london4 ,the same disheartening dryness of soul2 the same exasperating superficiality of intellect2 the same lack of all real refinement1 that ,i found a few centuries later in society in the times of the ,roman ,csars4 ,london desiccates2 whereas ,athens or ,paris animates4 ,when ,i gave up my relation to ,entra1 ,i met a woman of about thirty-four1 whose head was so perfect that ,evnetus himself has never engraved a more absolutely beautiful one4 ,her hair was not only golden of the most lovely tint1 but also full of waves1 from long curls in ,doric adagio1 to tantalising ,corinthian pizzicato frizzles all round4 ,her face was a cameo cut in onyx1 and both lovely and severe4 ,her loveliness was in the upper part of her face2 her severity round the mouth and the chin4 ,this strange reversal of what is usually the case gave her a character of her own4 ,her stark blue eyes were big and cold1 yet sympathetic and intelligent-looking2 and her ears were the finest shells that ,leucothea presented her mother with from the wine-coloured ocean1 and inside the shells were the most enchanting pearls1 which the sea-nymph then left in the mouth of the blessed babe as her teeth4 ,she was not tall1 but very neatly made2 a fausse maigre4 ,she wrote bright articles1 in which from time to time she wrapped up a big truth in bon-bon paper4 ,there was in her the richest material for the most enchanting womanhood2 a blend of ,musarion and ,aspasia2 or to talk modern style1 a blend of ,mademoiselle l',espinasse with ,madame ,rcamier4 ,she was neither4 ,not that she made any preposterous effort to be1 what ,paris calls1 a ,madame ,rcamier4 ,but ,london desiccated her4 ,from dry by nature1 she became drier still by ,london4 ,being as dry as she was1 she only cared for mystic things2 for what is behind the curtain of things2 for the borderland of knowledge and dream4 ,as sand can never drink in enough rain1 so dry souls want to intoxicate themselves with mystic alcohol4 ,in vulgarly dry persons that rain from above becomes--mud2 in refinedly dry souls it is atomised into an intellectual spray4 ,her whole soul was athirst of that spray4 ,when ,i told her that ,i was the son of ,clinias1 she wanted to know first of all1 what had been going on at the mysteries of ,eleusis4 ,i told her that1 like all the ,hellenes1 ,i had sworn never to reveal what ,i had seen at the holy ceremonies4 ,this she could not understand4 ,in her religion the priests are but too anxious to initiate anybody that cares for it4 ',initiate me--oh initiate me--,i beg you1' she said1 and looked more beautiful than ever4 ,her arm trembled2 her voice faltered4 ,even if ,i did not respect my oath1 ,i should not have told her the teachings of ,eleusis4 ,they were far too simple for her mystery-craving soul4 ,so ,i told her of the ,orphic mysteries1 and the more she heard of the extravagant and mind-shaking rites and tenets1 the more interested she became4 ,her mouth1 usually so severe1 swung again in pouty lines of youthful timidity1 and her voice got a 'cello down of mellowness4 ',let us introduce ,orphism into this country1' she exclaimed4 ',will you be honorary treasurer8' ,i accepted1 said ,alcibiades4 ,within three days ,orphism was presented as the ,orphic ,science4 ,the members were called priestesses1 archontes1 or acolytes1 according to their degree4 ,within a month there were #hdc members4 ,jamblichus was sent for and made secretary4 ,costumes were invented2 pamphlets printed2 cures promised2 shares offered4 ,it was declared that trances and mystic shivers would be procured 'while you wait'2 dreams accounted for2 inexplicables explained2 the curtain of things raised every ,friday at five1 after tea4 ,finally the ,orphics gave their first dinner at the ,hotel ,cecil4 ,that was the worst blow4 ,after that ,i abandoned ,orphism4 ,,fourth ,,night ,,alcibiades--,,continued ,hestia now interrupted ,alcibiades with the question whether all the women in nebulous ,britannia were as grotesque as those that he had described4 ,alcibiades smiled and said3 ,not all of them1 but all at times4 ,women must necessarily adapt themselves to the nature of their men1 as clerks do to that of their patrons1 or soldiers to that of their generals and officers4 ,the ,englishman buys his liberty at the expense of much human capital2 which cannot but make him eccentric and grotesque4 ,the women attune themselves to him1 although no foreigner has a clearer nor a more depreciative idea of ,englishmen's angularity than have ,english women4 ,as women they do not1 as a rule1 care for liberty at all1 and hence consider the sacrifices made by men for liberty as superfluous and uncalled-for4 ,a woman wants in all things the human note1 which the average ,englishman hates4 ,hence the surprising power of ,continental men over ,english women4 ,a hundred picked ,greeks from ,athens1 ,sicyon and ,syracuse could bring half of all ,english women to book--for ,cytherea4 ,how could it be otherwise8 ,the animated1 passionate1 direct talk of a ,greek is something so novel to an ,english woman that she is as it were hypnotised by it4 ,she thinks it is she and her personality that has given her ,continental admirer that verve of expression which she has never before experienced in the men of her circle4 ,this alone is such flattery to her that she loses her head4 ,if one resolutely goes on scraping off the man-made chalk from the manners and actions of ,english women1 one is frequently rewarded with the pleasure of arriving at last at the woman behind the chalk4 ,this is more especially the case in women of the higher classes4 ,the only time in ,england ,i felt something of that painful bliss that mortals call love1 was in the case of a lady friend of mine who1 under mountains of ,london clay1 hid away a passionate1 loving woman4 ,she was tall and luxuriously built4 ,her hands were of perfect shape and condignly continued by lovely arms1 that attached themselves into majestic shoulders with the ease of a rivulet entering a lake by a graceful curve4 ,over her shoulders the minaret of her neck stood watch4 ,in charming contrast to the legato cantabile of her body was the staccato of her mind4 ,her words pecked at things like birds4 ,sometimes there appeared amongst the latter an ugly vulture or two2 but there were more colibris and magpies4 ,i had met her for months before ,i surmised that there was something behind that ,london clay4 ,but when the moment came and the bells began sobbing in her minaret1 then ,i knew that here was a heart aglow with true passion and with the dawn of hope divine4 ,like all women that do truly love1 she would not believe me that ,i sincerely felt what ,i said4 ,doubt is to women what danger is to men3 it sharpens the delight of love4 ,she never became really tender2 ay1 she was amazed and moved to tears at my being so4 ,her heart was uneducated2 it was gauche at the game of love4 99 99 99 99 99 ,amongst the persons dressed in female attire ,i also met a number of beings whom1 but for my long stay at ,sparta1 ,i should hardly have recognised as women4 ,a ,french friend of mine remarked of them3 ',ce ne sont pas des femmes1 ce sont des ,amricaines4' ,the species is very much in evidence in ,london4 ,they reminded me violently of the ,spartan women4 ,they are handsome1 if more striking than beautiful4 ,i noticed that in contrast to ,european women1 ,american females gain in years what they lose in dress at night4 ,they look older when undressed4 ,they have excellent teeth1 and execrable hands2 they jump well1 but walk badly4 ,their great speciality is their voice1 which is strident1 top-nasal1 falsetto1 disheartening4 ,the most beautiful amongst them is murdered by her voice4 ,it is as if out of the most perfect mouth1 set in the most charming face1 an ugly rat would jump at one4 ,that voice1 the ,english say1 comes from the climate of ,america4 7,this ,i do not believe at all2 for ,i have noticed that in ,england everything is ascribed to the climate1 as to the thing most talked about by the people4 ,climate and weather are the most popular subjects in ,england2 the one that is never out of fashion47 ,as a matter of fact it comes from the total lack of emotionality in the ,americans2 just as amongst musical instruments the more emotional ones1 like the 'cello1 have more pectoral tonality1 whereas the fife1 for instance1 having no deep emotions at all to express1 is high and thin toned4 ,nothing seemed to me more interesting than the way in which the ,american female reminded me of the ,spartans and the ,amazons4 ,could anything be more striking than the coincidence between two conversations1 one of which ,i had1 far over two thousand years ago1 with the ,queen of an ,amazonian tribe in ,thracia1 and the other with the wife of an ,american flour dealer settled in ,london8 ,when ,i called on ,thamyris in her tent1 one of her first questions was as to the latest dramatic piece by ,sophocles4 ,i at once saw that the ,queen wanted to impress her entourage with her great literary abilities4 ,i gave her some news about ,sophocles1 whereupon she turned round to her one-breasted she-warriors and said with a superior smile3 ',you must know that ,sophocles is the latest star in ,athenian comedy4' ,she mixed you up1 ,o ,sophocles1 with ,aristophanes4 ,with the ,american flour dealer's wife my experience was as follows3 ,he had made my acquaintance in a bar-room1 and invited me to his house4 ,on the way there he said to me3 ',my missus is quite a linguist4 ,she talks ,french like two natives4 ,do talk to her ,french4' ,when we arrived at the house and entered the drawing-room1 a rather handsome woman rose from an arm-chair1 and stepping up to me said something that sounded like ',monsieur1 je suis ravie de faire votre connaissance'2 ,i thanked her1 also in ,french1 when suddenly she bowed over me and whispered in ,american fifes3 ',don't continue1 that's all ,i know4' ,when ,i left1 the husband accompanied me to the door4 ,before ,i took leave1 he twinkled with his right eye1 and asked me with a knowing look1 ',well1 sir1 what do you think of the linguistic range of my madame8' ,i did not quite know what to reply4 ,at last ,i said3 ',like a true soldier she fights on the borderland4' ,one of the strangest things to note in ,london society is the fascination exercised by ,american women on ,englishmen4 ,many of the really intelligent men among the ,english are practically lost as soon as the ,american woman begins playing with the little lasso of thin ropes which she carries about her in the shape of an acquired brightness and a studied vivacity4 ,the most glaring defects of those women do not seem to exist for the average ,englishman4 ,he takes her loud brightness for ,french esprit dished up to him in intelligible ,english4 ,her total lack of self-restraint and modesty he takes for a charming abandon4 ,the real fact is that he is afraid of her4 ,she may have many a bump3 she certainly has not that of reverence4 ,her irreverent mind makes light of the grandezza of ,englishmen1 and thus cows him by his fear of making himself ridiculous4 ,the first ,american woman 7--sit venia verbo1 as you would say1 ,o ,cicero--7 ,i met in ,london was one married to an ,english lord4 ,she was tall1 well-built1 with rich arms and hips1 an expressive head1 very fond of the arts1 more especially of music4 ,even her head1 which was a trifle square1 indicated that4 ,when she learnt that ,i really was the famous ,alcibiades1 her excitement knew no bounds4 ,she was good enough to explain it to me3 ',just fancy that6 ,alcibiades6 7,they pronounce my name ,elkibidees47 ,i am simply charmed6 ,i have so far every year introduced some new and striking personage into drawing-rooms1 in order to stun the natives of this obsolete island4 ,i have brought into fashion one-legged dancers2 three-legged calves2 single-minded thought-readers2 illusionists2 disillusionists2 disemotionists2 dancers classical1 medival1 and hyper-modern2 ,french lectures on the isle of ,lesbos1 after a series of discourses on the calves of the legs of ,greek goddesses in marble2 not to forget my unique course of lectures given at the drawing-room of the dearest of all duchesses1 on the history of dcolletage4 ',this year1 to be quite frank with you1 ,mr ,elkibidees1 ,i meant to arrange in the magnificent drawing-room of an ,oriental ,english lady1 the uniquest and at the same time the boldest exhibition ever offered to the dear nerves of any class of women4 ,i cannot quite tell you what it was going to be4 ,i can only faintly indicate that it was to be a collection of all the oldest as well as latest inventions securing the tranquillity of enjoying just one child in the family4 ,this1 ,i have no doubt1 would have been the greatest sensation of the season4 ',the city of ,manchester and the town of ,leeds would have publicly protested against so immoral an exhibition4 ,of course their councillors would have done so after careful study of the things exhibited4 ,three bishops would have threatened to preach publicly in ,hyde ,park2 while five archdeacons would have volunteered to be the honorary secretaries of so interesting an exhibition4 ',i communicated the idea to ,father ,bowan1 a virulent ,jesuit1 who in the creepiest of capucinades1 delivered on most ,sundays during the season1 gives us the most delightful shivers of repentance1 and likewise many an inkling of charming vice of which we did not know anything before we learned it from his pure lips4 ,he was delighted4 ,do1 my lady1 do do it4 ,i am just a little short of horrors1 and your exhibition will give me excellent material for at least four ,sundays4 ,i hope you have not forgotten to illustrate by wax figures certain methods1 far more efficient than any instrument can be1 and most completely enumerated and described in the works of members of our holy ,order1 such as ,suarez1 ,sanchez1 ,escobar1 and others4 ,should you not have these works1 ,i will send you an accurate abridgment of their principal statements of facts4 ',when ,i heard the ,rev4 ,father talk like that1 ,i could scarcely control myself with enthusiasm in anticipating the huge sensation my exhibition was sure to make4 ,it would have been the best fed1 the best clad1 and the most enlightened sensation ever made in ,england since the battle of ,hastings4 ,i really thought that nothing greater could be imagined4 ',and yet1 when ,i now come to think what a draw you will be1 ,mr ,elki1 if properly taken in hand1 duly advertised1 adroitly paragraphed1 constantly interviewed1 and occasionally leadered1--when ,i think of all that1 ,i cannot but think that ,i shall have in you the greatest catch that has ever been in any country under any sun4 ,in fact1 ,i have my plan quite ready4 ',i will announce a big reception1 to meet you4 ,some ladies will1 by request1 arrive in ,greek dress4 ,the public orator of one of the great ,universities will address you in ,greek1 and you will reply in the same language4 ,then three of the prettiest daughters of earls and marquesses will dance the dance of the ,graces1 after which there will be a dramatic piece made by ,hall ,caine and ,shaw1 each of them writing alternate pages1 the subject of which will be the ,thirty ,years' ,war1 in which you excelled so much4' ,i interrupted her1 said ,alcibiades1 remarking that the ,thirty ,years' ,war was two thousand years after my time2 my war was the ,peloponnesian ,war4 ',very well1' she exclaimed1 'the ,peloponnesian ,war4 ,i do not care which4 ,hall ,caine will praise everything in connection with war1 in his best ,daily ,nail style4 ,he is1 you know1 our leading light4 ,he always wants to indulge in great thoughts1 and would do so too1 but for the awkward fact that he cannot find any4 ',shaw1 on the other hand1 will cry down in choicest ,gaelic all the glories of war4 ,it will be the biggest fun out4 ',and then1 entre nous1 could you not bring with you a ,lais1 a ,phryne or two1 in their original costumes as they allured all you naughty ,greeks in times bygone8 ,it would be charmingly revolting4 ,when ,i dimly represent to myself how the young eagles of society will tremble with pleasure at the thought of adding to their lists of conquests1 in pink and white1 a ,corinthian or ,athenian demi-mondaine of two thousand years ago1 ,i feel that ,i am a ,personality4 ',if ,i could offer such an unheard-of opportunity ,i should get first leaders in the ,manchester ,guardian and mild rebukes1 full of secret zest1 in the godly ,guardian2 let alone other noble papers read by the goody-goody ones4 ,the ,record would send me a testimonial signed by the leading higher critics4 ,i should be the heroine of the day and of the night4' ,the gods and heroes encouraged ,alcibiades by their gay laughter to tell them all that happened at the ,at ,home of his ,american lady friend1 and he continued as follows3 ,when the evening of the ,greek soire came1 ,i went to the drawing-room in company with ,phryne and ,lais1 who were most charmingly dressed as flute-girls4 ,when we entered the large room we saw a vast assembly of women and men1 mostly dressed in the preposterous fashion of the little ones4 ,the women looked like zoological specimens1 some resembling ,brazilian butterflies1 others reptiles1 others again snakes or birds of prey4 ,the upper part of their bodies was uncovered1 no matter whether the rest of the body had gone through countless campaigns enlivened by numerous capitulations1 or whether it had just expanded into the buds of rosy spring4 ,the men looked like the clowns in our farces4 ,they wore a costume that no ,greek slave would have donned4 ,it was all black and all of the same cut4 ,instead of looking enterprising1 they all looked like undertakers4 ,each of them made a nervous attempt to appear as inoffensive1 and as self-effacing as possible2 just like undertakers entering the house where a person had died4 ,when we entered the room the whole assembly rose and cried3 ',cairo--,cairo6' 7they were told to cry ,chaire--but in vain74 ,i could distinctly hear remarks such as these3 ',how weird6'--',is it not uncanny8'--',it makes me feel creepy6' ,after a few minutes there was a deep silence1 and an elderly gentleman came up through the middle of the room and1 bowing first to us and then to the people assembled1 stepped up to the platform and began a speech in a strange language1 which ,i vaguely remembered having heard before4 ,phryne suddenly began to giggle1 and so irresistible was her laughter that both ,lais and ,i could not but join her1 especially when in words broken by continuous laughter she told us3 ',the old gent pretends to speak ,athenian ,greek6' ,it was indeed too absurd for words4 ,there was especially that vulgar sound i constantly recurring where we never dreamt of using such a sound2 and our beautiful ypsilon 77 he pronounced like the ,english u1 which is like serving champagne in soup-plates4 ,when he stumbled over an ou1 he pronounced it with a sound to which dentists are better accustomed than any ,athenian ever was1 and our deep and manly ch 77 he castrated down to a lisping k4 ,i remember ,carians in ,asia ,minor who talked like that4 ,our noble and incomparable language1 orchestral1 picturesque1 sculptural1 became like the ,palace of ,minos which they are excavating at present3 in its magnificent halls1 eaten by weather and worm1 one sees only poor labourers and here and there a directing mind4 ,i imagined that the good man meant by his speech to welcome me back into the world1 and so when my turn to answer him came1 ,i got up and1 leaning partly on ,phryne and partly on ,lais1 who stood near me1 ,i replied as follows1 after speaking for a little while in ,attic1 in the language of the country3 ',it is indeed with no ordinary satisfaction that ,i beg to thank you1 ,o ,sophist1 and you here present for the pleasant reception that you have given us4 ,my lot has on the whole not been altogether bad4 ,your studious men1 it is true1 affect to condemn me1 my policy1 and my private life4 ,perhaps they will allow me to remark that the irregularity of my past morals is a matter of temptations4 ,diogenes used to tell us that one of my sternest historian-critics in ,syracuse left his wife1 children and house on being for once tempted by the chamber-maid of one of my passing caprices2 and the historians of your race who so gravely decry a ,madame de ,montespan would1 did ,madame only smile at them1 incontinently fall into a fit of hopeless moral collapse4 ',but if your men write against me1 irrespective of what they really feel about me1 ,i am sure your women take a much more lenient view of the case4' 7,discreet applause47 ',they feel that ambition did not eat up all the forces of my soul1 and that in worshipping ,ares 7,mars71 ,i never forgot the cult of ,aphrodite 7,venus7 either4 ,we ,hellenes ventured to be humans1 and that is why now we have become demi-gods4 ,you1 my friends1 do not even venture to be humans1 and that is why you remain the little ones4 ',i notice in the northern countries of ,europe men do not1 or to a very small degree care for women4 ,perhaps that is the reason why the ,roman ,catholic idea of the ,holy ,virgin has had no lasting hold on these nations4 ',i have seen1' continued ,alcibiades1 'too many faces1 masks1 and pretences to be much impressed by the apparent indifference of the northerner to the charms of women4 ,it never meant more than either an unavowed inclination towards his own sex1 or sheer boorishness4 ,even we ,hellenes had very much to suffer from our political and social neglect of women outside emancipated ones4 ,the ,romans acted much more wisely in that respect2 while the nation of our hostess has practically become what we called a gyncocracy or women's rule1 where man is socially what our ,greek women used to be3 relegated to the background4 ,i hear1 this is the privilege of ,englishmen4 ,i understand4 ,when ,i was young ,i learnt but too much about that privilege4 ',but if ,i should be asked for advice ,i would tell your men to take your women much more seriously4 ,i know that ,englishmen are much more grave than serious2 yet with regard to women they ought to be much more intent on considering them in everything their mates1 and in several things their superiors4 ,of course1 this is an unmilitary nation2 and such nations will always remain boors in ,sunday dress4 ',one of your great writers who1 being outside the academic clique1 has always been maligned by the officials1 has written a beautiful essay on the influence of women4 ,poor ,buckle--he treated the problem as a schoolroom paper4 ,he came to the result that women encourage the deductive mode of thinking4 ,however1 women are more seductive than deductive1 and their real influence is to charm the young1 to warm the mature1 and not to alarm the old4 ',i1 being now above the changes of time1 ,i only1 contemplate their charm4 ,and what greater potentialities of charm could one wish for than those that your women possess8 ,if those magnificently cut and superbly coloured eyes learned to be expressive2 if the muscles of those fine cheeks knew how to move with speedier grace2 if that purely outlined mouth were more animated--what possibilities of fascination1 like so many fairies1 might rise over the dispassionate surface of those silent lakes6 ,as they are1 their several organs are positively hostile1 or coldly indifferent to one another4 ,the forehead1 instead of being the ever-changing capital of the human column1 setting off their beautiful hair1 as ivory sets off gold2 the shoulders1 the seat of human grace1 instead of giving to the head the pedestal of the ,charites2 and the arms and hands1 instead of giving by their movements the proper lilt and cadence to everything said or done2--all these hate one another respectively4 ,the arms do not converse with the face2 theirs is like other conversations3 after a few remarks on the weather all communication stops4 ,so sullen is the antipathy of the arms1 that as a rule they hide on the back1 as if begrudging the face or the bust their company4 ,it is in that way that ,english women who might be as beautiful and charming as the maidens of ,thebes or of ,tanagra1 have made themselves into walking ,caryatides1 whom we invariably represented as doing a slavish labour1 with their arms on their backs1 and with a heavy load on their heads4 ',remove the arms1 ,o women of ,england1 from your badly swung back and bring them into play in front of your well-shaped bust and your beautiful faces6 ,let the consciousness of your power electrify your looks1 your dimples1 and your gait2 and when from musing ,graces you will have changed into graceful ,muses1 your men too will be much superior to what they used to be4 ',see how little your influence is1 as your language clearly indicates4 ,is not your language the only idiom in ,europe that has completely dropped that fine shade of sweet intimacy which the use of thou and thy is giving to the other languages8 ,is not a new world of tenderest internal joy permeating the ,french1 ,german or ,italian woman who for the first time dares to tutoyer her lover8 ,you women of ,england1 the natural priestesses of all warmth and intimacy1 you have suffered all that to decay4 ',to your men we ,hellenes say3 ,imitate us6 ,to you women1 we do not say so4 ,we ask you to exceed us1 to go beyond us1 and then alone when women will be what we ,hellenic men were1 that is1 specimens of all-round humanity1 then indeed you too will rise to the higher status1 and the golden age will again fill the world with light and happiness6' ,after that speech of mine1 continued ,alcibiades1 there was much applause4 ,i mingled with the public1 and was at once interpellated by one of the ,american ladies present3 ',most interesting speech1' she said4 ',what ,i especially liked were your remarks about thou-ing4 ,and what ,i want to know most is whether ,caryatides were thou-ing one another8' ,i was a little perplexed1 and all that ,i could answer was3 ',their dimples did1' and this seemed to satisfy my ,american lady marvellously well4 ,another lady asked me how many ,muses we had1 and on hearing that their number was nine1 she was highly astonished4 ',only nine8 ,why in ,london there are mews in every second street4 ,how strange6' ,a third lady asked me what ,i meant by shoulders being a pedestal4 ,her shoulders1 she was sure1 were no pedestals1 and she would not allow anyone to stand on them4 ,she added1 that she was aware of my having said that the shoulders were the pedestal of the ,charites1 but with her best intention she could not allow even charity to be extended to her shoulders4 ,i smiled consent4 ,a fourth lady1 whose name was ,valley1 but who was a mountain of otherwise rosy flesh1 asked me what ,i had meant by maidens of ,podagra8 ,she was sure that young maids never suffered from that ugly disease4 ,i told her that ,i really meant ,chiragra4 ,this satisfied her marvellously well4 ,during that time ,phryne and ,lais were the heroines of the evening1 lionised by women1 and courted by men4 ,the women asked them all sorts of questions and seemed extraordinarily eager to be instructed4 ,one of them1 a brilliant duchess--7who had three secretaries providing her with the latest information about everything1 the first preparing all the catch-words from ,a to ,g1 the second from ,h to ,n1 and the third from ,o to ,z7--asked ,phryne whether she would not permit her to convince herself of the accuracy of the estimate in which ,hyperides held the exquisite form of ,phryne's bosom4 7,a middle-class woman thereupon asked ,mr ,gox1 ,m4,p41 what ,hyperides meant4 ,mr ,gox told her it was the ,greek for ,rufus1 son of ,abraham47 ,phryne volunteered to do so at once1 and the women disappeared in a special room1 from where very soon cries of amazement could be heard4 ,the pure beauty of ,phryne enchanted the women4 ,the sensation was immense1 ay immensest4 ,the representative of the ,daily ,nail offered first #bjjj1 then #cjjj1 finally #ejjj for permission to kodak ,phryne4 ,the ,bad ,times at once prepared a folio edition of ,the ,engravers' ,engravings1 payable in #bfc instalments1 or preferably at once4 ,the ,daily ,marconigraph started a public discussion in its columns3 ',shall the lower part of the upper anatomy of the female trunk be unveiled8' ,the excitement became so universal that ,mr ,gigerl ,see at once convened a national meeting for the erection of ten new statues to ,shakespeare2 and ,general ,booth ordered an absolute fast of #aje hours' duration4 ,all the directors of music halls1 the next day1 stormed ,hotel ,ritz where ,phryne had a suite of six lovely rooms1 and offered impossible prices for a performance of five minutes4 ,phryne1 after consulting me1 consented to appear at the ,palace ,theatre1 in the immortal scene when1 in presence of the entire population of ,athens1 she descended into the sea4 ,half of the proceeds were to be given to a fund for poor women in childbed4 ,endless advertisements soon filled every available space on ,london's walls1 parks1 newspapers1 'buses1 railways1 and shops4 ,tickets sold at tenfold their original prices4 ,at last the evening came4 ,in the first two rows there were practically nothing but clergymen4 ,the following rows were filled with lawyers1 ,m4,p4's and ,university professors4 ,in the boxes one could see all the aristocracy of the country4 ,when ,phryne's turn came1 the orchestra played ,wagner's ',pilgrim's ,chorus1' toward the end of which the curtain rolled up1 and the scene represented the ,pirus with apparently countless people1 all in ,greek dress4 ,when the expectation was at its height1 ,phryne appeared clad only with the veil of her perfect beauty1 and descended into the sea4 ,before she entered the water she said her prayers to ,aphrodite1 and then slowly went into the waves4 ,everyone in the audience had come to the theatre expecting to be badly shocked4 ,to their utmost astonishment they found that there was not only nothing shocking in the scene1 but even much to fill the people with awe4 ,like all the barbarians1 the little ones deem nudity a shocking sight4 ,what shocked them that night was the fact that they were not shocked4 ,they felt for a moment that many of their notions and views must be radically wrong1 and that was the only shock they received4 ,phryne triumphed over ,londoners1 as she did over the ,athenians4 ,my ,american lady friend was in raptures4 ,the incredible sensation her ,elki and his ,athenian women had caused in blas ,london society made her the centre of all social centres for a fortnight4 ,she received innumerable letters from innumerable people4 ,the greatest writers that the world has ever seen1 such as ,miss ,cora ,morelli1 wrote to her saying1 that3 ',she had from her infancy onward taken a deep interest in ,alcibiades and his time1 and that now1 having actually seen him1 she would forthwith publish a novel under the attractive title of ,the ,mighty ,elki1 let alone another novel1 full of the most delightful shivers1 called ,phry1 the ,pagan4' ,mr ,hall ,caine1 in a thundering article1 fulminated against the row made over ,phryne1 and solemnly declared that the charms of his ,manxman were incomparably greater4 ,one day ,mr ,caine called on me4 ,he implored me to become a ,christian1 and assured me that the shortest way to that effect would be to attend a performance of his piece of that name4 ,i thanked him for his kind offer1 but politely declined it4 ,whereupon ,mr ,caine remained musing1 until at last he surprised me with the question3 ',mr ,alcib1 you are the man to solve the problem of my life4 ,do you not think ,i bear a remarkable resemblance to ,lord ,bacon8' ,i answered that ,i could discern no resemblance between him and the witty ,chancellor1 but that ,i was bound to confess that there was a striking resemblance between him and ,shakespeare4 ,mr ,caine smiled a superior smile4 ',i wonder1' he said1 'you are not aware of the fact that ,shakespeare was written by ,lord ,bacon4' ',very strange--very strange1' ,i replied4 ',we in ,olympus think that ,shakespeare was written by the victory over the ,armada1 and published by ,elizabeth and ,co4' ',do you really think such stuff in ,olympus8' exclaimed ,mr ,caine2 'then ,i do not wonder that ,i have never been invited to that place4 ,what has the ,armada to do with ,hamlet or ,king ,lear8 ,you might just as well say that my novels were written by our victory at ,colenso and ,spion ,kop4 ,it is revoltingly absurd4 ,a book is a book and not shrapnel or bombs4 ,sir1 ,i am ashamed of you2 the purple of red indignation rises swellingly into my distended physiognomy1 and my thought-fraught forehead sinks under the ignominy of such life-bereft incoherences6' ,i advised ,mr ,caine to drink ,perrier2 he thanked me profusely1 and assured me that he had always done so4 ,he evidently mixed it up with the ,pierian sources of literature which1 ,i learn1 provide the innumerable papers of the ,associated ,press with the necessary water under the name of ,perrier4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in my honour my ,american lady friend gave1 a few days later1 a concert4 ,the little ones call a concert a series of instrumental and vocal pieces played for sheer amusement1 and without any relation to poetry1 dance1 or religion4 ,i have these three to four hundred years accustomed myself to their music1 which is thoroughly different from ours1 being polyphonous1 whereas ours was never so4 ,dionysus1 who presides at their music1 has often told us that he introduced it into the modern world in order to show his exceeding power even in times when the men and women have lamentably fallen from the height of our ,grecian culture4 ,our music was essentially ,apollinic2 that of the moderns is ,dionysiac4 ,you remember1 ,o ,zeus1 that even ,apollo was moved when three of the moderns had the honour to perform before him4 ,even he praised ,mozart1 ,chopin1 and some pieces of ,weber4 ,you need not blush1 ,frdric1 and you might help me to entertain and charm our holy circle by playing us one of your compositions in which beauty of form is married in tender love to truth of feeling4 ,thereupon1 at a sign of ,zeus1 ,milo of ,crotona1 the ,olympian victor of all victors1 carried a piano on his mighty back1 and put it down gently in one of the mystic barks4 ,chopin1 bowing to the gods1 and more particularly to ,juno and ,diana1 sat down to the instrument and played the second and the third movement of his ,e minor ,concerto4 ,round him waved the three ,graces1 while ,dionysus laid an ivy wreath on his blessed head4 ,even the gods were moved1 and when ,frdric had ended1 they applauded him with passionate admiration4 ,i wish1 ,o ,chopin1 continued ,alcibiades1 ,i had known you in my mortal time4 ,what ,terpander and ,thaletas1 the great musicians1 did for ,sparta1 you might have helped me to do for ,athens4 ,it was not to be4 ,the thought saddens me still4 ,more than ,sophocles and ,aristophanes or ,socrates1 your incomparable music would have helped to keep the ,kosmos of ,athens in due proportions4 ,a short pause ensued1 and all looked with timidity on ,zeus' immovable face4 ,but let us drop these sorrowful reminiscences and return to the ,london concert given by my ,american hostess4 ,she had engaged the best-known artists4 ,for the solo songs she engaged a woman who had to be carried into the room in a motor chair1 and was not allowed to stand up1 before three architects had examined the solidity of the floor4 ,her range was from the deep p to the high l4 ,she sang baritone1 and soprano at the same time1 and what her tone wanted in width her taille amply replaced4 ,she sang nothing but ,wagner1 whose music1 it would appear1 is written for two-ton women only4 ,no smaller tonnage need apply4 ,while she sang1 three dozen violins executed the tremolos of five hundred whimpering children1 while forty counter-basses gave1 every three minutes1 a terrible grunt in x minor4 ,there were also fifteen fifes1 and twenty-one different kinds of brass instruments1 some of which had necks much longer than that of the oldest giraffe4 ,the music was decidedly sensual and nerve-irritating4 ,it was full of chords1 both accords and discords1 and what little melody there was in it was kneaded out into a tapeworm of prodigious length and such hydralike vitality1 that no matter how frequently the strings throttled off its head1 it yet constantly recurred bulging out a new head4 ,the men present liked the singer2 the women adored the music4 ,it gave them all sorts of shivers1 and although they did not understand it at all1 they yet felt that here was a new shiver4 ,or as one of them1 the bright ,mrs ,blazing1 remarked3 ',quel artiste que ce ,m4 ,wagner6 ,he has translated into music the grating noise of a comb on silk1 the creaking of a rusty key in an old lock1 and the strident rasp of a skidding sleigh or motor on hard-frozen snow4' ,the next artist was a ,belgian violinist4 ,for reasons that you alone1 ,o ,zeus1 could tell us1 the ,belgians are credited with a special gift for pulling strings in general1 and those of the violin in particular4 ,being a nation midway between the ,germans and the ,french1 they are believed to possess much of ,german musical talent and something of ,french elegance4 ,this would easily make them good 'cello players4 ,but not satisfied with the 'cello1 in which they have excelled more than one nation1 they must needs be great violinists too4 ,however1 the violin1 while not at all the king of instruments1 is yet the most vindictive and jealous amongst them4 ,it is like the ,lorelei3 it allures hundreds1 only to dash their bones against the rock of ,failure4 ,it wants the delicacy of a woman and the strength of a man4 ,it requires the soul of spring and the heart of summer to play it well4 ,a ,belgian is eo ipso debarred from reaching the height of violin-playing2 just as a ,chinaman1 with his over-specialised mind1 can never well play the orchestral piano4 ,a ,belgian heart is moving in a colourless and slouching andante2 the violin moves in a profoundly agitated adagio or allegro4 ,the violin is the instrument of luckless nations1 such as were formerly the ,italians1 the ,poles1 and the ,hungarians who gave us ,paganini1 ,wienavski and ,joachim4 ,the ,belgians have nearly always enjoyed the embonpoint of fat prosperity4 ',leur jeu bedonne1' as ,mrs ,blazing would say4 ,the ,belgian played your ,chaconne in ,d minor1 ,o ,bach4 ,at these words of ,alcibiades all the thinkers and poets present rose from their seats and bowed to ,john ,sebastian1 who stood near ,strabo and ,aristotle1 being exceedingly fond of geographical lore4 ,even the gods applauded and ,polyhymnia allowed him to kiss her hands4 ,you remember1 ,o ,john ,sebastian1 when ,i met you near ,ltzen at one of your solitary walks and you spoke to me of your ,chaconne4 ,i listened with rapt attention and told you that your composition1 which you then played to me on a violin which the old inn-keeper lent you and which had just arrived from ,steiner in ,tyrol1 rendered as perfectly as possible the sentiments ,i had felt when for the first time in my life ,i went to the ,oracle at ,dodona1 where the winds rush through the high oak-trees with a fierce power such as can be heard in no other spot in ,europe4 ,i re-imagined my awe-struck meditations in the holy grove2 ,i heard the stormy music of ,zeus' winds in ,zeus' trees2 ,i again felt all through me the soul-moving chorus of the priests which ends in a jubilating mood1 and finally ,i left with deep regret at having to re-enter my life of stress after having spent a day in sacred and mystic seclusion4 ,when the ,belgian artist played it1 ,i listened in vain for ,dodona4 ,what ,i heard was the rustling of silken tones through the wood of the chairs and tables at the ,carlton4 ,where was the ,oracle8 ,where the chorus of the priests8 ,where their jubilation8 ,the only thing that ,i found were my regrets4 ,but the public was charmed4 ,it is imperative to admire the ,chaconne1 chiefly because it is played ,violin solo4 ,mrs ,blazing explained the matter to me with her wonted rapidity of mind3 ',why wonder at our admiration of the ,chaconne8 ,do we not say3 ,chacun son got8' ,the next artist was a pianist1 whose name sounded like ,pianowolsky or ,forterewsky4 ,he was of course a ,pole4 ,the ,english have long found out that -welsky or -ewsky goes with the name of a great pianist1 as the pedal goes with the piano4 ,it was for this reason that ,liszt1 the ,orpheus of the last century1 never had any success in ,england4 ,he ought to have called himself ,franzescowitch ,lisztobulszky1 and then1 no doubt1 he would have scored heavily4 ,rubinstein had indeed much success in ,england1 but it is patent that most ,english took his official name as a mere abbreviation of ,ruben ,ishnajewich ,stonehammercrushowsky4 ,the ,english taste in music is remarkable2 it is somewhat like their taste in fruit4 ,they prefer hothouse grapes to natural ones4 ,in the same way they prefer the piano music of ,mendelmeier1 called ,bartholdy1 to that of ,stephen ,heller or ,volkmann4 ,what they more particularly like are the ',songs without ,words' of that composer1 which in reality are ,words without ,songs4 ,his piano music is nothing but congealed respectability1 or frozen shockingitis4 ,aristoxenus1 interrupting ,alcibiades1 exclaimed3 ,do not1 ,o son of ,clinias1 forget the man's marvellous compositions for the violin as well as for the orchestra4 ,diana frequently commands his ,midsummer ,night's ,dream when she dwells with her nymphs in the mystic forest near ,farnham ,common1 where ,bartholdy composed it under the trees of ,canute4 ,you are quite right1 ,o master of all ,harmony1 and ,i want to speak only of his piano music4 ,the pianist at the concert had a very fine profile and beautiful hair4 ,this helped him very much in a country where the sense of stylishness is exceedingly acute4 ,a coachman must have a broad back2 a pianist1 a fine profile2 a violinist1 long legs2 a 'cellist1 beautiful hands2 and a lady singer1 a vast promontory4 ,once these indispensable qualities are given1 his or her music is practically a matter of indifference4 ,the pianist then performing played well1 as long as he played forte and staccato2 but he had neither a legato nor1 what was fatal1 a piano1 let alone a pianissimo4 ,fortunately his sense of rhythm was very well developed2 otherwise he did not rise above a first prizeman of a conservatory4 ,he played a transcription or two by ,liszt4 ,this the ,english condemn2 it appears unlegitimate to them4 ,to please them1 one must play one of the last sonatas of ,beethoven1 preferably those composed after his death1 that is1 those that the man wrote when he had long lost the power of moulding his ideas in the cast of a sonata1 and when his vitality had been ebbing away for years4 ,a transcription stands to the original as does an engraving of an oil-colour picture or a statue to its original4 ,most people will enjoy a fine engraving of the ,transfiguration or of ,our ,lady of ,milo much more readily than they would the original2 just as ,i now know that you gave us1 ,o ,zeus1 great artists like ,scopas1 ,praxiteles1 ,lionardo1 or ,domenichino1 because we could not bear1 nor comprehend the sight of the originals of their divine art1 as long as we still move in our mortal coil4 ,the transcription of some of the ideas of ,mozart's ,don ,juan by ,liszt is the best and most illuminating commentary on that incomparable opera4 ,more interesting than the play were the remarks which ,i overheard from among the public4 ,the men dwelt exclusively on the big sums of money the pianist made by his #aebf recitals in #bjjj towns of the ,united ,states4 ,the profits they credited him with ranged from #ae1jjj to #ajj1jjj4 ,a ,viennese banker present drily remarked that he wished he could play the difference between the real and the imagined profits of the virtuoso on a fine ,erard piano4 ,the women made quite different remarks4 ,said one3 ',herr ,pianoforterewsky has been painted by royalty4' ',is that so8' said her neighbour4 ',what an interesting face6 ,i wish ,i could procure a photo of the picture4' ',do you know1' said a third1 'that ,herr ,pinaforewsky practises twenty-three hours a day8 ,i know it on the best authority2 his tuner told me so4' ',which tuner8 ,herr ,pinacothekowsky1 my dear1 has three tuners3 one for the high notes1 the second for the middle ones1 and the third for the low notes4' ',how interesting6 ,but suppose one of the tuners falls ill4 ,what does he do then8' ',why1 it's simple enough4 ,in that case he only plays pieces requiring two of the three ranges of notes4' ',how intensely interesting6 ,but pray1 if you do not take it amiss1 my dear1 ,i learnt that ,herr ,pedalewsky has only two tuners3 one for the black keys1 the other for the white ones4' ',my dear1 that was so in bygone times when he played sometimes a whole concert on the black keys alone1 being #bca variations on ,chopin's ,etude on the black keys4 ,but it made such a sad impression that some nasty critics said his piano was in mourning black2 other critics said that he was paid to do so by ,mr ,jay of ,regent ,street4' ',how excruciatingly interesting6 ,do you know1 my dear1 ,i was told that ,herr ,polonorusky plays practically all the time1 and even when he travels he carries with him a dumb piano on which he practises incessantly4' ',how touching6 ,i have heard that too1 and believed it1 until that atrocious man who writes for the ,bad ,times destroyed all my illusions4 ,he said that if ,herr ,pantyrewsky did that1 he would for ever spoil his touch4 ,just fancy that6 ,it is not the touch1 but the pose of that languid1 ,chopinesque profile over a dumb piano in a rattling car that was so interesting4 ,and now that horrid journalist spoils it all4 ,nay1 he added that the whole story was deliberately invented by the artist's manager4' ',how distressingly interesting6 ,you know1 my dear1 ,i will not believe the story about the manager4 ,i know too much about the wonderful pianist4 ,i have learnt at ,marienbad that he had ten teachers at a time1 one for each of his fingers1 and that for five years he lived in a tiny village in ,bavaria1 because1 don't you see1 it was so central for the ten different cities where his teachers lived4 ,for the thumb he rushed off to ,frankfort on the ,maine4 ,there is no town like ,frankfort for the study of the thumb4 ,that's why they make such excellent sausages there which resemble a thumb to perfection4 ,for the index he went to ,rome4 ,and so forth and so on4 ,it is most marvellous4' ,all during that time1 ,alcibiades continued1 the pianist was playing the moonlight sonata of ,beethoven4 ,at the end of the piece1 the ladies who had carried on the lively conversation applauded wildly4 ',was it not marvellous8' said one to the other4 ',oh--delightful6' was the answer4 ,so ended the concert4 ,on leaving my seat ,i met ,mrs ,blazing4 ',o mon cher1' she said1 'why do all these women pretend to enjoy music8 ,they very well know that not one of them cares for it in the least4 ,i frankly admit that music to me is the anarchy of air1 the ,french ,revolution of sounds1 acoustic bankruptcy4 ,all our lives we have been taught to suppress our emotions1 and to consider it ungenteel to express them in any way whatever4 ,we were told that we must hide and suppress them--which we have done so successfully that after some time we resemble to a nicety the famous safe of ,madame ,humbert4 ,and then1 in flagrant contradiction to all this genteel education1 we are supposed to accept with joy the moanings1 cries1 sobs1 sighs1 and other unsuppressed emotions of some middle-class ,dutchman or ,teuton dished up to us in the form of a sonata4 ,it is too absurd for words4 ',if that lower-middle-class ,dutchman ,beethoven 7or as my ,cynthia calls him3 ,bte au vent7 wants to exhale his moral distress and sentimental indigestion1 let him do so by all means1 but in a lonely room4 ,why does he interfere with the even tenor of our well-varnished life8 ,if my charming ,japanese china figures1 or my pretty girls and shepherds in vieux ,saxe suddenly began to roar out their sentiments1 ,i should have them destroyed or sold without any further ado4 ,why should ,i accept such roarings from an ugly1 beer-drinking1 unmannered ,teuton8 ,why1 ,i ask you8' ',music is the art of poor nations and poor classes4 ,outside a few ,jews1 no great musician came from among the rich classes2 and ,jews are socially impoverished4 ,i can understand the attraction of ditties nursed in the music halls4 ,they fan one with a gentle breeze of light tones1 and here and there tickle a nerve or two4 ,but what on earth shall we do with such plesiosauri as the monsters they call symphonies1 in which fifty or sixty instruments go amuck in fifty different ways8 ,the flute tries to serpentine round the bassoon in order to instil in it drops of deadly poison2 the violins gallop recklessly la ,mazeppa against and over the violas and 'celli1 while the brass darts forth glowing bombs falling with cruelty into the finest flower-beds of oboes and harps4 ,it is simply the hoax of the century4 ,would you at ,athens ever have endured such a pandemonium8' ',you are quite right1 ma trs charmante dame1' ,i said1 'we never had such music and we should have little cared for it4 ,our way of making symphonies was to write epics1 crowded with persons1 divine and human1 and with events and incidents of all colours and shades4 ,the ,continental nations have lost the epic creativeness proper1 and must therefore write epics in sound4 ,just as your languages do not allow you to write very strictly metred poetry such as we have written without impairing the fire and glamour of poetry1 and the only way left for you of imitating the severe metres of ,archilochus1 ,alcus or ,sappho is in the form of musical canons1 fugues1 or other counterpointed music4 ,it seems to me that you ,english have not done much by way of music epics1 because1 like ourselves1 you were busily engaged in writing epics of quite a different kind3 the epic of your ,empire4 ,the nations that have written musical epics1 did do so at a time when these were the only epics they could write1--the symphony of ,empire being refused them4' ',i see1' said ,mrs ,blazing4 ',you mean to say that our ,mozarts and ,beethovens are ,lord ,chatham1 ,clive1 ,nelson and ,wellington8' ',in a manner1 yes4 ,few nations1 if any1 can excel both in arts and in ,empire-making1 and had you ,english been able to hold in your imperial power considerable parts of ,europe1 say1 of ,france1 ,germany or ,spain1 you would never have had either ,walter ,scott or ,byron1 ,shelley or ,tennyson4 ,for the efforts required to conquer and hold ,european territory would have taxed all your strength so severely that no resources would have been left for conquests in the realm of the arts and literature4 ',this is why the ,romans1 who conquered1 not coloured races1 but the mightiest white nations1 could never write either great epics or great dramas4 ,they wrote only one epic1 one drama of first and to this day unparalleled magnitude3 the ,roman ,empire4 ,i meant to do a similar thing for ,athens1 but ,i failed4 ,i now know why4 ,my real enemies were not in the camp of my political adversaries1 but in the theatre of ,dionysus and in the schools of the philosophers4 ,do not1 therefore1 ma chre amie1 begrudge the ,germans their great musicians4 ,they are really very great1 and not even your greatest minds surpass1 perhaps do not even equal them4 ,your consolation may be in this1 that the ,germans too will soon cease writing music worth the hearing4 ,they now want to write quite different epics4 ,and no nation can write two sorts of epics at a time4' ',i am so glad to hear you say so1' said ,mrs ,blazing4 ',it relieves me of a corve that ,i hitherto considered to be a patriotic duty4 ,i mean1 ,i will henceforth never attend the representations of the new school of soi-disant ,english music4 ,inwardly ,i never liked it2 it always appeared to me like an ,englishwoman who tries to imitate the grce and verve of a ,parisian woman1 with all her easy gestures1 vivacious conversation1 and delicate coquetry4 ,it will not do4 ',we ,english women do not shine in movement2 our sphere is repose4 ,we may be troublesome1 but never troublante4 ',even so is ,english academic music4 ,and ,i now see why it must be so4 ,it is not in us1 because another force takes its place4 ,like all people we like to shine in that wherein we are most deficient1 and the other day ,i was present at a scene that could hardly be more painful4 ,at the house of a rich and highly distinguished city man ,i met the famous ,sir ,somebody ,hangar1 the composer4 ,the question arose who was the greatest musician8 ,thereupon ,sir ,somebody1 looking up to the beautiful ceiling of the room1 exclaimed dreamily3 ,music is of very recent origin4444 ,one of the gentlemen present then asked ,sir ,somebody whether he had ever heard the reply given to that question by the great ,gounod8 ,sir ,somebody contemptuously uttered3 ,gounod8 ,it is not worth hearing4 ,i was indignant1 and pointedly asked the gentleman to tell us ,gounod's reply4 ,the gentleman1 looking at ,sir ,somebody with a curious smile1 related3 ',gounod1 on being asked who in his opinion was the greatest musician1 said3 ,when ,i was a boy of twenty1 ,i said3 moi4 ,ten years later ,i said3 moi et ,mozart4 ,again ten years later ,i said3 ,mozart et moi4 ,and now ,i say3 ,mozart4' ,this reply1 said ,alcibiades1 has ,attic perfume in it4 ,having suffered so much1 as ,i have1 at the hands of musicians in my time1 when dramatic writers were as much musicians as dramatists1 ,i have in my ,olympian leisure carefully inquired into the real causes of the rise of modern music4 ',you said a few moments ago1 ma trs spirituelle dame1 that music is the art of poor classes4 ,there is this much truth in that1 that modern music has indeed been almost entirely in the hands of middle-class people4 ,this being so1 everything depends on the nature and dispositions of the middle class in a given country4 ,in ,england1 for instance1 the middle class is totally different from that of ,france or that of ,south ,germany1 the home of ,german music4 ,the ,english middle class is cold1 dry1 gaffeur to the extreme1 afflicted with a veritable rage for outward respectability1 unsufferably formalist1 and deeply convinced of its social inferiority4 ,in such a class nothing remotely resembling ,german or ,french music can ever possibly arise4 ,such a class furnishes excellent business men1 and reliable sergeants to the officers of imperial work4 ,but music can no more grow out of it than can a rose out of a poker4 ',this middle class is the result of ,british ,imperialism1 and this is how ,imperialism has prevented and will1 as long as it lasts1 always prevent the rise of really fine music in the higher sense of the term4 ,this is also why we ,hellenes never achieved greater results in music4 ,like the ,english1 or the ,americans1 we never had a real bourgeoisie1 or the only possible foster-earth of great music4 ,however1 bourgeoisie is only a historic phenomenon1 one that is destined to disappear1 and with it will disappear all music4 ,mr ,richard ,strauss is singing its dirge4' ,when ,alcibiades had finished his entertaining tale of women and music in ,england1 the gods and heroes congratulated him warmly1 and ,zeus ordered that1 under the direction of ,mozart1 all the nymphs and goddesses of the forests and seas shall sing one of the motets of ,bach4 ,this they did1 and all ,venice was filled with the magic songs1 which were as pure as those produced by the nymph ,echo in the ,baptistry at ,pisa4 ,all the palaces and the churches of ,venice seemed to listen with melancholy pleasure1 and ,st ,mark's hesitated to sound the hour lest the spell should be broken4 ,when the motet was ended1 the gods and heroes rose and disappeared in the heavens4 ,,the ,,fifth ,,night ,c,,sar ,,on ,,the ,,house ,,of ,,commons ,on the fifth night the gods and heroes assembled in the city of ,rome4 ,their meeting-place was the ,forum4 ,the eternal city lay dormant around them1 and ,zeus1 who had for the time recalled into existence the magnificent temple built in his honour1 which used to adorn the incomparable centre of ,roman might and splendour1 sat in front of it1 surrounded by the ,flamines and the last ,pontifex ,maximus aided by the last ,vestal ,virgins4 ,on the via sacra there was an unending flow of thronging ,romans and ,greeks1 and ,cicero was seen talking with great animation with ,julius ,csar1 while ,augustus seemed to chide ,tacitus with mild irony4 ,cornelius ,scipio ,africanus was deeply engaged in a conversation with ,pericles1 and ,marcus ,antistius ,labeo discussed law with ,plato4 ,from afar the wind brought the sounds of the bells of the ,vatican1 at the hearing of which all conversation stopped2 and when a few minutes later a choir intoned a hymn in a neighbouring church1 the ,pontifex and the ,flamines veiled their heads in dumb resignation1 and the ,vestal ,virgins looked up to ,zeus as if imploring him for help4 ,a pause followed4 ,but soon the moon rose over the majestic ,palatine hill2 the ,graces performed a soulful dance1 and finally ,zeus asked ,caius ,julius ,csar to entertain them with his experiences during his third travel in ,england which1 as he said1 he had1 in addition to his two landings during his mortal life1 recently made after nearly two thousand years4 ,csar1 standing near the house of the ,senate of ancient ,rome1 thus addressed the divine ,assembly3 ,it is1 ,o ,jupiter and all the other gods and heroes1 a singular pleasure and honour to me to address you on a topic so important and interesting4 ,when ,i arrived in ,england for the third time 7--,i started from ,dunkerque to avoid giving offence to the #aab scholars who have1 each to his complete satisfaction1 proved #aab different spots on the ,french coast between ,boulogne and ,calais wherefrom ,i am supposed to have started for ,england in my mortal time--7 ,i was received by no wilder tribe than a few customs officials1 who asked me whether ,i had any cigars in my toga4 ,on my denying it1 they searched me1 and finding none they let me go4 ,two hours later ,i arrived in ,london1 which ,i found ugly beyond words4 ,i can understand that you1 ,o ,canova1 cried on seeing it4 ,what struck me most was its surprising silence1 which contrasted very strongly with the noise of ,rome1 or ,paris4 ,i mentioned this to a casual acquaintance1 who stared at me in despair1 exclaiming3 ',silence1 sir8 ,why1 the noises of ,london drive half of us to madness4 ,here1 take that 7--he handed me a bunch of printed papers--7 read it carefully and join us4' ,on looking into the papers ,i found that they contained a prospectus of a vast ',society for the ,abatement of ,street-,noises in ,london4' ,this made me somewhat thoughtful4 ,it was quite clear to me that the unattractiveness of ,london is owing chiefly to its lack of animation1 to its silence4 ,i soon found out that silence is the dominating institution of that country4 ,to talk is to infringe the principal law of their language4 ,they want to see their language noiselessly1 and not to hear it4 ,hence they constantly read printed language on wooden paper1 in a wooden style1 on wooden matters4 ,this they call 'the daily ,press4' ,i met one of the chief writers on their most popular paper1 and he assured me that the editor solemnly warns each of his contributors not to indulge in any attempt at esprit or brilliancy of any sort2 for1 should he do so1 the editor would be forced to dismiss him forthwith4 ,all that the contributor is allowed to do is to make startling headlines1 such as3 ',delicious puddings made out of wood4' ',new aqueducts full of milk for the people4' ',discovery of wireless telegraphy among the ancient ,egyptians4' ',discovery of the pin-cushion to ,cleopatra's needles4' ',trunk murder3 a man assassinates his widow4' ,that same editor1 on my asking him why he allowed such crying stupidities in the headlines1 and nothing but the most platitudinous stuff in the body of the article1 gave me the following answer3 ',my dear sir1 our public has nerves but no intellect4 ,hence we work for sudden1 rapid shocks to their nerves1 and no fatigue to their intellect4 ,they not only do not think2 they do not want to think4 ,they are practically convinced that thinking is the perdition of all common-sense4 ,just let me give you an example4 ,there is among the younger writers one whose mind is singularly suggestive and nimble4 ,he really has something to say1 and can say it well4 ,however1 unfortunately1 he says it in what are1 apparently1 contradictory and circuitous terms4 ,this my readers cannot grasp2 it fatigues them4 ,they complain of that man's writings as being heavy1 hard to follow4 ,this is the consequence of the vogue of music halls4 ,one may say that the popular ,university of this country1 where the average man gets most of his ideas from1 is the music hall4 ,what1 then1 can we editors do better than imitate the style and substance of the music hall8 ,shocks to the nerves--and no fatigue to the intellect4 ,voil6' 99 99 99 99 99 ,on my way home ,i met ,columbus4 ,he told me1 and no man ever spoke with more solid right1 that he was the greatest benefactor to ,england4 ,but for him1 who by discovering the ,new ,world placed ,england in the very centre of the intelligent and wealthy nations1 while formerly ,england was somewhere on the 'other end of all the world'2 but for him1 he said1 ,england could never have had her unique leverage4 ',you1 ,csar1' he added1 'discovered ,england1 as the ,vikings discovered ,america2 ,i did not discover it1 ,i made it4 ,but would you believe me that thousands and thousands of ,englishmen have scarcely ever heard my name8 ,they constantly talk of their race as born to rule4 ,but what would they have ruled without me8 ,the ponds in ,lincolnshire4 ,you wonder at their tongue-tiedness4 ,i will tell you what it means4 ,the ,english are neither talkers nor thinkers2 they are almost exclusively men of action2 or used to be4 ,they have no intellectual initiative4 ,they have started neither the ,renascence1 nor the ,great ,discoveries of my time1 nor the ,reformation1 or the three greatest factors in the formation of modern ,europe4 ,all this was first started by us ,italians4 ,we can both talk and think and create2 but we are not good at actions4 ,the ,english are good only at action4 ,this is the be-all and end-all of their history4 ,have you ever seen their ,parliament8 ,do not omit attending it4 ,you will there learn something that no other ,assembly can teach you4 ,it rarely contains a great orator1 for oratory is of little use in an ,assembly with an iron party discipline1 and with members every one of whom is amenable to no argument that has not had the august privilege of being born in his own mind4 ,and since his mind brings forth none1 he moves in a vicious circle6' ',would you not1' ,i asked ,columbus1 'accompany me to the ,house of ,commons8' ',readily1' said the great ,genoese4 ,and next day we repaired to the 'first club of the country4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,the hall was curiously unfit for the business of a national ,assembly4 ,it is neither large1 nor light enough4 ,the acoustics are fair1 but superfluous4 ,for1 who cares very much what any member other than himself is saying8 ,in the midst there is a porter's lodge1 in which sits a gentleman in the attire of the eighteenth century4 ,this1 as behoves a conservative ,roman1 did not meet with my disapproval4 ,the only objection ,i made was that in my opinion he ought to have been clothed in all the various costumes in use since ,magna ,charta4 ,the ,english1 and the rest of the little ones1 in utter contrast to ourselves1 constantly vary their dress4 ,we preferred to vary our inner selves4 ,the subject of discussion1 or rather of a score or so of monologues1 was one of which in my time ,i have had the amplest experience4 ,they proposed to give weekly a certain sum of money to anyone of their citizens who on reaching his seventieth year had arrived at the end of his financial tether4 ,in my day ,i had given away millions to the populace1 and my imperial successors had gone even very much further4 ,the common people was thereby demoralised as is everybody1 even parents1 who accepts1 year in year out1 free gifts from a third person or his children4 ,being demoralised1 such a recipient of donations becomes inevitably the most cruel enemy of his donor4 ,nothing contributed more to the downfall of ,rome4 ,a nation must consist of free and financially independent citizens1 or it loses its most precious asset4 ,how frequently1 ,o ,pericles1 have you said to me1 how much you regretted having introduced the same injurious donations into ,athens4 ,but this is the melancholy truth of all history3 one learns from history one thing only1 to wit1 that no statesman has ever learned anything from history4 ,in the midst of my sad reflections ,i could yet not help being amused by the speech of one member of the governing party1 who belonged to that formidable mixture of faddists1 formalists1 cocksure-ists1 and moral precisians who have in this country an influence that we should not have given to the members of the most exalted among the ,roman patricians4 ,much as they are laughed at1 they yet have the power of striking dread into the public and instilling hesitation into the feeble nerves of statesmen4 ,the name of the orator in question was1 if ,i am right1 ,harold ,gox4 ,he said3 ',mr ,speaker1 it is with a satisfaction and self-complacency new even to me that ,i beg to submit my remarks on a subject than which there is no greater one2 a subject1 sir1 that has no predicate except that of immensity2 an immensity1 sir1 that exceeds infinitude itself2 and last not least1 an infinitude vaster than all other infinitudes3 a moral infinity4 ,this country1 sir1 was built up by morals and righteousness4 ,righteousness1 ,i say1 sir2 and ,i will repeat it3 righteousness4 ,how did we come by our ,empire8 ,by righteousness4 ,how did our colonists occupy vast continents8 ,by righteousness4 ,what was the guiding principle even of our national debt8 ,righteousness1 in that we contracted it mainly by paying the foreigner to help us in beating our immoral enemies4 ,righteousness is the ,a and the ,z of our glorious polity4 ',we cannot help being righteous2 it is in us1 over us1 beside1 beneath1 and all through us4 ,we have sometimes tried to be unrighteous2 but1 sir1 we could not4 ,it is not given to us1 and we have only what is given to us4 ',well then1 sir1 if that be so1 as it undoubtedly is1 beyond the shadow of a doubt2 then ,i venture to say that any person that opposes the present bill of ,old ,age ,pensions cannot but be an enemy of ,england1 in that he is an enemy of righteousness4 ',what indeed1 sir1 can be fairer1 juster1 and more equitable than that they who have laboriously saved up a few sovereigns1 should share them with those that have done everything in their power to have none8 ',where there is nothing1 there is death4 ,can a country introduce death as a regular constituent organ of its life8 ,what in that case would righteousness do8 ,she would blush green with shame1 sir4 ,nothing would remain for her but to leave this country and to go to ,germany or ,turkey4 ,could we allow such a disaster8 ,would it not be necessary to hold or haul her back by ropes1 strings1 or any other instrument of our party machinery8 ',just1 pray1 represent to yourself1 sir1 or to any other person1 the actualities of the case4 ,here is a man of seventy4 ,it is a noble feat of honourable perseverance to reach that age4 ,it is1 ,i make bold to submit1 an evident proof of the favour and countenance of ,the ,principle of ,all ,,righteousness that the man was allowed to proceed so far4 ',he has worked all such days of his long life as he did not spend in reverential contemplation of the works of the ,almighty4 ,who can blame him for that8 ',i go much further3 who can possibly blame him for having focussed his attention rather on the liquid than on the solid bodies of ,creation8 ',each man has his own way of saying prayers4 ',now1 after having thus spent a long life in what has at all times been considered the essence of life2 or as the ancient ,romans used to formulate it1 after having acted upon the noble doctrine of ora et labora 7pray and work71 he finds himself landed1 or rather stranded in the wilderness of penury4 ,sir1 such a state of things is untenable1 unbearable1 and unrighteous4 ',i know full well that people who have never given righteousness the slightest chance persist in repeating the old fallacy1 that a labourer ought to save up for a rainy day4 ,but1 pray1 sir1 is it not perfectly clear that this principle is of ,egyptian origin1 and comes therefore from a country where there is no rain8 ',in ,england1 sir1 there are #cfb rainy days a year2 therefore #cfbj rainy days in ten years1 #ah1ajj rainy days in fifty years4 ,how shall1 ,i ask you1 that unfortunate labourer1 or grocer1 or author1 save up for #ah1ajj days8 ,that takes a capital of at least #be1jjj4 ,well1 who has that capital8 ,no one4 ,the nation alone has it4 ,ergo1 the nation must pay for the rain4 ',i have1 sir1 in my locker a great many shots like the preceding1 but ,i will1 out of modesty1 not use them all4 ,i will only dwell on one point4 ,sir1 our opponents contend that the money needed for ,old ,age ,pensions is not available unless it be taken from funds much more necessary for the public welfare4 ,now ,i ask1 which are those funds8 ,the answer ,i receive is that the nation needs more defensive measures against possible invasions on the part of a ,continental power4 ',sir1 on hearing such nonsense one is painfully reminded of what ,lord ,bacon used to say3 ,difficile est satiram non scribere4' 7,a voice from the ,irish bench3 ',juvenal1 and not ,lord ,bacon6'7 ',well1 ,lord ,percival1 and not ,lord ,bacon1 it amounts to the same4 ',an invasion8 ,sir1 an invasion8 ,how1 for goodness' sake1 do our opponents imagine such a thing to be possible8 ,i know they say that ,lord ,roberts has declared an invasion of ,england a feasible thing4 ,but has ,lord ,roberts ever invaded ,england8 ,how can he know8 ,how can anyone know8 ',they refer me to ,william the ,conqueror4 ,but1 sir1 is it not evident that ,william could not have done it had he not been the ,conqueror8 ,being the ,conqueror1 he was bound to do it4 ,is there any such ,william amongst the ,williams of the day8 ,i looked them all up in the latest ,who's ,who--but not one of them came up to the requisite conditions4' 7,a voice3 ',william ,whiteley6'7 ',i hear1 sir1 the name of ,william ,whiteley2 and ,i reply that he is now too ,ltd4 to undertake such a grand enterprise4 ',and more than anything else militating in my favour is the fact that the ,germans do not so much as dream of doing this country the slightest harm4 ,look at the relationship between the ,kaiser and the ,king2 nephew and uncle4 ,who has ever heard that a nephew made war on an uncle8 ,take into consideration how the ,kaiser behaved when lately visiting ,england4 ,did he not leave huge tips at ,windsor8 ,did he not stroke children's cheeks8 ,did he not admire our houses8 ,who else has ever done that8 ,he talked ,english all day long1 and during part of the night4 ,he read the ,daily ,telegraph and took his tub every morning4 ,can there be stronger symptoms of his ,anglophile soul8 ',a few weeks after he left ,england he went so far in his predilection of everything ,english that he even curtailed his moustaches4 ',his moustaches1 sir1 these the beacons of the ,german ,empire1 the hirsute hymn of ,teutonia1 her anchor1 her lightning rod1 her salvation6 ',to talk of such a man's hostile intentions against ,england is to accuse ,dover ,cliff1 ,high ,cliffe1 or ,northcliffe1 or any other ,cliff of base treachery4 ,no1 sir1 there is no need of new expenses for defence on land2 and as to the sea1 we have only to follow the ,chief ,admiral's advice and go to sleep4 ,our principal force consists of our power to sleep on land as well as on sea4 ,once asleep1 we can spend nothing4 ,in that way there remains plenty of money for the ,old ,age ,pensions1 that glorious corrective of misery1 that ventilator of property1 and distillator of other men's pockets4 ,i have not a word to add2 the subject itself talks to every person of sense in a thousand tongues4' ,when the man had ended1 ,csar continued1 ,i asked one of the officials whether the orator was the clown of the house4 ,the official looked daggers at me4 ,he explained in a solemn voice that the orator was a staunch ,liberal and ,cobraite4 ,the latter name was1 ,i learnt1 a little mistake in pronunciation2 it ought to have been ,cobdenite4 ,cobden1 ,i was told1 was a very great man4 ,he succeeded in passing a measure which under the circumstances of his time was not altogether bad1 although it drove the people away from the plough to the factories4 ,however1 he1 like our ,gracchi1 imagined that what was good for his time must necessarily be good for all times4 ,on the basis of a complete ignorance of the ,continent1 that is1 of the ,power that has always been and always will be the real regulator of the fundamental policy of ,england1 ,cobden thought he had got hold of an absolute truth1 instead of a merely passing and temporary measure4 ,like all nations that have never gone through social and political cataclysms and are necessarily highly conservative1 the ,english are totally lacking in historic perspective4 ,men of the class of ,cobden1 or such as the orator ,i had heard1 are like their most renowned thinker1 ,herbert ,spencer1 absolutely devoid of historic thinking4 ,they think in categories of quantity and matter2 never in quality made by history4 ,columbus1 who was with me1 said3 ',you need not be unusually excited over what you see4 ,each nation cuts a different caper to the riddles and problems of life4 ,the ,french1 who used to be des hommes1 while at present alas6 they are only des omelettes1 were in their prime of an aggressive attitude to all that touched them2 the ,germans were of an idealising temper1 while their present mood is rather a tampering ideal2 the ,americans are full of the exploiting fever2 and the ,english invariably take up a posture of expectativeness4 ',they pretend to believe what the ,spartan ,king ,archidamus always said3 ,one cannot by reasoning disentangle the future4 ,this attitude pays the ,english best4 ,first they let it be proved by the ,spanish1 ,portuguese1 ,dutch1 and more particularly by the ,french that ,india can be conquered1 and then--they take it4 ,even so with ,egypt1 ,canada1 the ,west ,indies1 and ,south ,africa4 ,expectativeness is their motto4 ',when ,i came to ,england trying to persuade them to help me in the discovery of ,america1 they acted the wise ,archidamus1 and would not give me linen for one sail4 ,when ,i had discovered it1 then they took as much of it1 and more than they could swallow4 ,this method of expectativeness has had much historic quality1 to use your words1 ,o ,csar1 for a time4 ,but ,i am afraid it is beginning to be worn out4 ',i for one know 7and have you1 and ,pericles1 and ,joan of ,arc1 and ,napoleon1 and so many others not told me the same thing when we used to meet1 at the wish of ,joan1 at ,rheims ,cathedral871 ,i for one know what these little ones do not even dream of1 so infatuated are they with the power of ,reason and ,science and similar machinery1 namely1 that our force to forefeel things of the future is far greater1 at least in some of us1 than our capacity to analyse or comprehend things of the present or the past4 ,our whole being is not so much an upshot of the past as a projection of the future4 ,hence the astounding assurance with which all of us now assembled in ,olympus felt in advance what later on we actually did carry out4 ,i should have discovered ,america had it never existed2 as ,i actually discovered it thinking that ,i discovered the eastern side of ,asia4' ,i very well see1 said ,csar1 what you mean4 ,the ,english have no forefeeling of things to come4 ,they do not note that their whole situation in historic space has in the last generation completely changed1 and that therefore their old method of expectativeness1 which lived mainly on the blunders of other nations1 has become quite obsolete4 ,they are where we were after ,zama1 after the end of the ,second ,punic ,war1 or the end of the third century ,b4,c41 as they say4 ,so they are at the end of their second ,hundred ,years' ,war with ,france4 ,but while we distinctly felt that after the ,carthaginians1 whom we had defeated1 we were inevitably compelled to reduce the ,macedonians1 and not shrinking from our heavy task we did defeat them1 though with tremendous effort2 the ,english do shrink from doing what the uncommon sense of the future as well as the common sense of the present but too clearly tell them to do4 ,the blunder of ,france and ,spain which was the chief ally of ,england in former times1 ,i mean1 the blunder of these great nations in making war on ,england only at times when they had four to ten other wars on hand2 that capital blunder the dominating ,power of this moment will never commit4 ,germany will not embroil herself in any ,continental war while fighting ,england4 ,this is indisputable4 ,for the first time in modern times ,england will be at grips with a first-class ,continental ,power which is in a position to concentrate all her strength on ,england4 ,this completely novel situation requires completely novel methods of meeting it4 ,yet1 the average ,englishman is quite unaware of all that4 ,what ruined mighty ,macedon8 ,not the lack of a powerful army1 since our oldest generals1 such as milius ,paulus1 trembled at the thunderlike onslaught of the famous ,macedonian phalanx1 or infantry4 ,but instead of joining the ,carthaginians full-heartedly while we smarted under the scourge of ,hannibal1 they misread the whole situation and waited1 and waited1 until--we were able to concentrate upon them1 even to incorporate the best ,greek forces in our armies1 and the end was disaster for ,macedon4 ,just listen to the speech now going on4 ,the ,leader of the ,opposition is speaking4 99 99 99 99 99 ',mr ,speaker1 ,i am broadly astonished at the statements of the hon4 member for ,alarmville1 who has just painted the international horizon in tints of ,indian ink4 ,i cannot imagine where he takes his tints from4 ,does he want to pose as a political ,tintoretto8' 7,much applause--most members send for the ,encyclopdia ,imperialis to find out what ,tintoretto means47 ',the horizon1 as everybody knows1 is only an imaginary line1 and each man has his own horizon4 ,if therefore the horizon of the hon4 member be as black as jet1 ,i have not much to say against it1 and will send him my condolences4 ,but why should he obtrude his horizon on that of all the rest of peace-loving humanity8 ,i also have my horizon4' 7,the hon4 member3 ',horizons1 if you please4'7 ',horizons8 ,more than one horizon8 ,perhaps2 it probably needs more than one to descend to that of the hon4 member4' 7,opposition members3 ',deucedly clever1 by ,jove6'7 ',on my horizon ,i see no cloud1 no vapours1 no foundations of any belief in storms or tempests of any kind4 ,what conceivable reason should the ,germans have for attacking us8 ,i fail1 ,i utterly fail to see it4 ,i know that my adversaries say that whatever reasons ,germany may or may not have to attack us1 we1 these people say1 we have a plethora of motives to attack them4 ,this point1 this argument is so devoid of point or argument1 that ,i cannot waste the time of the ,house in refuting it4 ,it refutes itself4 ,why should we attack the ,germans8 ,because we have no reasons to do so4 ,that is all that one can advance4 ,do we want their colonies8 ,why1 we are eternally obliged to them for having taken them and so rid us of a sterile investment4 ,do we want part of ,germany8 ,neither parts nor the whole of it4 ,have we not ceded to them ,heligoland8 ,sir1 it is1 as ,i said1 impossible to detect a single argument in favour of our attacking ,germany4 ,the minds that counsel such a violent measure are influenced by apprehensions arising out of future developments4 ,they are anticipative souls to whom the secrets of the future have been revealed by the timorousness of the present4 ,i respect souls2 ,i respect timorousness2 but ,i refuse to attribute to it any oracular wisdom4 ,the future is dark1 three shades darker than the present1 which is impenetrable enough as it is4 ',there remains1 then1 only the other alternative3 ,germany seriously means to attack us4 ,well1 sir1 let us analyse this statement4 ,what earthly good would such an attack do to the ,germans8 ,i hear they covet ,denmark and ,holland1 as the natural outlets of their ,empire which at present is like a muffled head2 and since ,england cannot permit their taking possession of ,denmark and ,holland1 the ,germans must fight ,england4 ,this argument1 sir1 lacks all the elements of truth4 ,it lacks geographical force1 historical momentum1 political sense4 ,denmark1 we all know1 is quite in the east of ,germany between the ,elbe river and the ,lake of ,baikal4' 7,uproarious hilarity in parts of the ,house4 ,a voice3 ',lake ,baikal is in ,siberia6'7 ',i hear1 sir1 ,lake ,baikal is in ,siberia4 ,as if ,i had not known it1 sir6 ,i say ,baikal as the scientific term of ,baltic1 which is in reality ,bi-,kalic1 or rapidly speaking3 ,baikal4' 7,opposition members3 ',deucedly clever--he got out of that scrape6'7 ',denmark which1 as ,i said1 is in the east of ,germany does not muffle her at all4 ,it is a highly artistic country and in the ,bay of ,catgut are fished the best strings for violins4' 7,a voice3 ',sound of ,kattegat6'7 ',i hear1 sir1 that it is the ,sound of ,kattegat1 but ,i think every patriotic ,englishman says ,catgut4 ,but to return to my argument3 the ,germans being very musical1 love violins1 and consequently love the ,kattegat1 as the hon4 voice says1 and love the ,danes4 ,as long as the ,danes give their fine catguts1 the ,germans will certainly not think of doing them any harm4' 7,an angry voice3 ',but ,denmark is in the north of ,germany6'7 ',i hear1 sir1 that ,denmark has moved from her ancient moorings4 ,if that be so1 then ,i can only conclude that ,germany has still less reason to covet the possession of ,denmark4 ,for1 is it not clear1 or luce clarius1 that ,denmark is a sort of nightcap to ,germany8 ,the ,germans themselves typify their nation as a ,deutscher ,michel 7,teuton ,michael7 with a nightcap on his head4 ,why1 this nightcap is ,denmark4 ,the ,teuton likes a nightcap4' 7,general laughter47 ',all ,teutons do4' 7,renewed laughter47 ',need ,i say more8 ',and as to ,holland1 ,i am bound to say that it passes my comprehension how anyone can seriously maintain that ,germany covets ,holland4 ,i hear that she covets ,holland because it is exasperating to a great ,power like ,germany that the entire delta of her greatest river1 the ,rhine1 belongs to a small and hostile ,power4 ,it is asked of me1 how ,i1 or for the matter of that any ,englishman1 would like to see the mouth of the ,thames in the power of the ,belgians8 ,sir1 ,i should not like to see that1 to be sure4 ,but the case is quite different4 ,we ,english have no river like the ,rhine1 which in its upper course gives the most generous wine1 and in its lower course is nothing but a vile combination of hydrogen and oxygen1 commonly called water4 ,if1 for better illustration1 the ,thames in her upper course gave the finest whisky----' 7,great uproar among two-thirds of the members1 all teetotallers47 ',or1 ,i beg your pardon1 ginger beer or cyder1 we should not greatly mind to whom the lower course belonged4 ,but1 sir1 it is a well-known and a most patriotic fact that the ,thames river contains nothing else than water4 ,water1 sir1 is the panacea of this nation6' 7,violent applause from two-thirds of the ,house47 ',yes1 the panacea1 the salvation1 the resurrection1 and the rehabilitation of this country4' 7,cries3 ',righteousness6--,righteousness6'7 ',we cannot get enough of it4 ,water in our throats--in our papers1 books1 and speeches4 ,water in our dramas1 novels1 drugs2 water1 water--three kingdoms for water6' 7,wild and frantic applause of the whole ,house47 ',now1 sir1 ,i maintain all this does not hold good with our friends the ,germans4 ,they do drink wine and beer and schnapps4 ,they cannot be without them4 ,their ,rhine gives them wine in plenty in that part of its course which belongs to them4 ,what does it1 what can it matter to them to whom the lower part of the ,rhine1 full of mere water1 does or does not belong8' 7',hear6 ,hear6'7 ',the ,germans are a practical nation4 ,does any person2 ,i say more than that1 can any person say that the ,germans will wage a great war in order to possess themselves of water1 when all that time they already have excellent wine8 ,i could understand1 sir1 that if the ,germans occupied the watery mouth of the ,rhine only1 and not its middle and upper course full of noble wine----' 7,several voices3 ',order6 ,order6 ,retract noble4'7 ',well1 well1 the ,house will allow me to say noble wine1 inasmuch as wine has not only four or fourteen quarters1 but innumerable ones4' 7,opposition cries3 ',excellent6 deucedly clever6'7 ',to return to my argument3 ,i could understand that the ,germans1 if they had only the lower course of the ,rhine1 would forthwith wage war to acquire the middle and upper course of the river4 ,we learn from ,tacitus that they are a very thirsty nation1 and this authentic news is1 as readers of more modern authors tell me1 not given the lie by the contemporary ,germans either4 ,but under the existing circumstances the ,rhine--or ,hock--argument1 meant to prove ,german hostility1 falls into the water near the ,dutch border1 wherever that may be4 ',there is finally1 sir1 another so-called argument re ,holland and ,germany4 ,it is stated that the ,germans covet ,holland on account of the ,dutch colonies in ,asia and ,south ,america4 ,these colonies1 as everybody knows1 are exiguous4' 7,an angry voice3 ',about #hjj1jjj ,english square miles4'7 ',i hear1 sir1 the ,dutch colonies are about #hjj1jjj ,english square miles4 ,of course1 my information is taken from ,tacitus2 and no doubt since his time some additions have been made to the colonial microcosm of the ,dutch4 ,but even if that were so1 and if the ,dutch actually possessed #hjj1jjj square miles of colonies1 it is quite patent that these colonies1 if not exiguous in extent1 are exiguous in value3 otherwise they would long ago have been governed from ,downing ,street4' 7,approving laughter--half of the members smile knowingly1 while the other half pat themselves on the backs of their neighbours47 ',do you mean to tell me that the ,germans will wage an immense war for the sake of what we have not deigned to pick up8 ,they are1 ,i know1 past masters in the use of offals for purposes of food and drink4 ,but surely in matters of politics they want more than offals4 ',at the risk of wearying hon4 members ,i should like to add just a remark or two on another argument of the alarmists4 ,we have seen the ,danish argument2 the ,hock argument2 and the ,dutch colonies argument4 ,there remains one more3 the aerial argument4 ,i hear from my valet that one ,chaplin or ,zebraline has made a flight or two through the air4' 7,voices3 ',zeppelin6'7 ',i hear1 sir1 his name is ,zeppelin2 probably an abbreviation of ,mazeppaline1 whom ,lord ,byron has sung so well4' 7,opposition members3 ',deucedly clever6'7 ',the flight of ,mazeppa has naturally much agitated the ,germans1 all of whom can read ,english4 ,if they could not1 what else would they read8 ,i have never heard of a ,german literature4 ',but to resume3 the ,germans1 excited by ,mazeppa behold in ,herr ,zeppelin an aerial ,mazeppa4 ,that is all1 as the ,french say4 ,but1 sir1 is it likely that ,herr ,zeppelin will so perfect his balloon or airship as to make it available for the transportation of an army corps or two to ,england8 ,suppose he could do so2 what would be simpler than to render his aerial landing in this country impossible8 ,we have simply to refuse him a patent for the ,british ,empire1 and lo6 he can never set foot on the clouds of ,england4 ',but the alarmists say that even if ,zeppelin's airship could not carry over whole army corps1 they might very well serve for ,german scouts and spies1 who might explore the secret preparations and defensive measures made by this country on land4 ',well1 sir1 this apparently strong argument has not an atom of vitality in it2 and for the simplest of reasons too4 ,the ,germans might send their trustiest ,zeppelin ,no4 #aj or ,no4 #ej1 with their best trained scouts in it4 ,these scouts might pry into anything in the shape of military preparations in ,england2 but they will never discover anything4 ',why1 sir1 this is why we make no preparations4 ,we do that simply to nullify any possible ,zeppelin4' 7',hear6 ,hear6 ,deucedly clever4'7 ',some critics say that we have lost the old bold imperialist spirit4 ,but1 sir1 is it not evident that we are to-day of a greater military spirit than we ever were formerly8 ,feeble nations1 in order to secure peace1 constantly prepare for war2 or as the ,latin adage holds it3 ,si vis pacem para bellum4 ,we1 on the other hand1 make no preparations for war1 because we are so strong as to consider war or peace with equal equanimity4 ,to sum up3 the aerial argument has no more force in it than the other arguments of the alarmists4 ,if a modern ,william the ,conqueror should be able to conquer the air1 and by a modern battle of ,hazetings 7deucedly clever67 enter the mid-air of this country1 he will find ,heroes and not ,harolds to contest every square inch of ,margate winds1 of ,lincolnshire rain1 or of ,london smoke4 ,this country1 sir1 can be subjugated neither by land1 nor by sea1 nor by air4 ,over these three elements hovers and reigns supreme the indomitable spirit of the race4' 7,tremendous applause47 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the speech of the ,leader of the ,opposition was ended1 ,columbus turned to me1 continued ,csar1 and said3 ',i have no doubt1 ,o ,csar1 that you are fairly sickened by that speech4 ,but1 pray1 consider that every word of it was framed and uttered1 not to discuss seriously the ,german danger1 but to get back into power4 ,the speaker is neither so ignorant nor so foolish as he appears4 ,he made a special effort to appear absolutely ignorant of geography1 because the party in power has won great renown by an imposing ignorance in that subject4 ,you must not smile4 ,i say deliberately1 imposing4 ,the ,english hate geography1 maps1 atlases1 globes4 ,even in the examinations for the diplomatic service they do not admit geography as a subject4 ',being convinced of the exclusive importance of their own country1 they are simply bored with geographical considerations of any other country4 ,some time ago it occurred that not one member of the ,house knew whether ,british ,guiana was an island or a peninsula4 ,of course1 it is neither4 ,it belongs to the bon ton to be ignorant of all geography2 that is1 to treat ,germany or ,denmark or ,russia as if one spoke of some internal province of the ,chinese ,empire4 ,for similar reasons1 the speaker affected not to see the slightest danger from ,germany4 ,the party in power was elected by the people mainly on the ground that with the ,goody-,goody ones in1 and the ,imperialists out1 the people were safe not to be embroiled in a ,european war4 ,in order to take the wind out of the tattered sail of ,pacifism the speaker acted as if the ,germans did not so much as dream of doing ,england any harm4' ,all this is most disheartening1 said ,csar4 ,to treat foreign policy merely as a card in the little game of electioneering is most injurious to the interests of a great country4 ,england1 like every other country in ,europe1 has been made in her ,downing ,street rather than at the polls or in ,committee-rooms4 ,european currents determine the minor currents of the home policies of the several countries4 ,you say1 and with the utmost right1 ,o ,columbus1 that you have given the ,english their most powerful leverage4 ,but would you have thought of doing what you did do1 had not a vast event in ,south-eastern ,europe1 the coming of the ,turk1 driven your countrymen to the discovery of a western route1 the eastern being closed by the ,turk8 ,i wish the ,parthians in mid-,asia1 in my time1 had been as strong as the ,turks were in your time4 ,we should have had you while ,i lived1 and by the discovery of ,america over fifteen hundred years before you did discover it1 the whole trend of the world's history would have been different4 ,for you would have given this immense new leverage to the ,roman ,empire instead of to little ,england4 ,it is rather amusing to hear the ,english talk of the ',unspeakable ,turk1' a nation to whom they are1 if indirectly1 more obliged than to any other nation of the past or present1 excepting the ,french4 ,the truth is1 that no nation makes itself4 ,it is made by itself only in so far as it reacts against the powerful influence of the others1 its neighbours and their neighbours4 ,if these neighbours are feeble1 and second-rate nations1 the reacting nation itself will remain feeble and second-rate4 ,the greatness of the present ,germans is a veritable godsend to the ,english1 since the decadence of the ,french4 ,by reacting against it properly1 ,england will be newly invigorated4 ,the scribblers of the little ones ascribe the downfall of the ,empire which ,i founded to the rottenness of my ,romans4 ,how untrue6 ,my ,empire decayed because1 comprising as it did all the then known civilised nations1 it lacked a great adversary by reacting against whom it might have reinvigorated itself from time to time4 ,they say the ,barbarians1 chiefly the ,teutons1 overpowered us4 ,alas6 ,i wish they had been much stronger than they were4 ,they never overpowered us4 ,had the ,greeks and ,macedonians been able to concert great military measures against us1 we should have been forced to give up the fatal idea of an all-compassing ,empire1 and should have finally arrived at a fine and vitalising balance of power in the ,mediterranean4 ,the ,english ought to welcome1 although to combat the rise of ,germany4 ,they imagine that their principal force comes from their colonies4 ,it will come1 not from their colonies1 which is geographically impossible1 but from their perennial rivalry with great ,continental ,powers4 ,these rivalries made ,england1 made her colonies4 ,to give up these rivalries1 to cease combating great ,continental ,powers1 will be the end both of ,england and her ,empire4 ,in my time ,i1 together with all my friends1 gloried in my long-drawn conquest of ,gaul1 and my final victory over the leader of the ,gauls1 ,vercingetorix4 ,i now wish ,i had been defeated at ,alesia1 and a strong and united ,gaul had been established under my unlucky adversary4 ,what inestimable centre of healthy rivalry would ,gaul not have been for us6 ,to try to conquer it was right2 to have definitely deprived it of independence was a disaster4 ,strifeless bliss prospers only in ,olympus4 ,,the ,,sixth ,,night ,,apollo ,,and ,,dionysus ,,in ,,england#a ,it is many years ago that in the ,bodleian at ,oxford ,i was shown into the beautiful room where ,john ,selden's noble library is placed4 ,it is a lofty1 well-proportioned room1 and on the walls are arrayed the silent legions of the great scholar's books4 ,at that time ,i was still fonder of books than of realities1 and with breathless haste ,i ran over the title-pages and contents of the grand folios in over fifteen languages1 written by scholars of all the ,western nations and of many an ,oriental people4 ,then ,i paused before the fine oil-painting near the entrance of the room representing the face and upper body of the scholar-patriot4 ,the face is singularly1 touchingly beautiful4 ,the delicately swung lines of the lips tell at once1 more especially in their discreet corners1 of the deep reticence and subtle tact of the man4 ,no wonder my ,lady ,kent loved him4 ,the combination of political power1 boundless erudition1 and charming male beauty could not but be pleasing to a knowing woman of the world4 ,his eyes1 big and lustrous1 yet veil more than they reveal4 ,he evidently was a man who saw more than he expressed1 and felt more than he cared to show4 ,living in the troublous times of ,james the ,first and ,charles the ,first1 he worked strenuously for the liberties of his country1 while all the time pouring forth works of the heaviest erudition on matters of ancient law1 religions1 and antiquities4 ,his printed works are1 in keeping with the custom of his day1 like comets3 a small kernel of substance1 appended to a vast tail of quotations from thousands of authors4 ,like the unripe man ,i was1 ,i liked the tail more than the kernel4 ,yet ,i had been in various countries and had acquired a little knowledge of substance4 ,and as ,i gazed with loving looks at the mild beauty of the scholar1 ,i fell slowly into a reverie4 ,i had read him and about him with such zeal that it seemed to me ,i knew the man personally4 ,then also ,i had walked over the very streets and in the very halls where he had walked and talked to ,camden1 ,cotton1 ,archbishop ,ussher1 ,sir ,mathew ,hale1 ,lord ,ellesmere1 ,coke1 ,cromwell4 ,it was the period that we1 in ,hungary1 had been taught to admire most in all ,english history4 ,and there was more particularly one maxim of ,selden's1 which he carefully wrote on every one of the books of his library1 which had always impressed me most4 ,it ran3 ,liberty above everything2 or as he wrote it1 in ,greek3 4 ,yes1 liberty--that is1 political liberty--above everything else4 ,i had1 like all people born in the fifties of the last century1 believed in that one idea as one believes in the goodness and necessity of bread and wine4 ,i could not doubt it2 ,i thought1 to doubt it was almost absurd4 ,and so ,i had long made up my mind to go one day to ,oxford and to make my reverent bow to the scholar who had adorned the shallowest book of his vast collection by writing on it the ,greek words in praise of liberty4 ,however1 before ,i could carry out my pilgrimage to the ,bodleian1 ,i had been five years in the ,states4 ,there indeed was plenty of political liberty1 but after a year or so ,i could not but see that the sacrifices which the ,americans had to make for their political liberty were heavy1 very heavy1 not to say crushing4 ,and ,i began to doubt4 ,i conceived that it was perhaps not impossible to assume that in ,selden's maxim there were certain ifs and certain drawbacks4 ,my soul darkened2 and when finally ,i arrived at the ,bodleian1 ,i went into ,selden's room1 and to his portrait1 prompted by an unarticulated hope that in some way or other ,i might get a solution of the problem from the man whose maxim ,i had held in so great esteem for many a long year4 ,so ,i gazed at him1 and waited4 ,the room became darker2 the evening shadows began spreading about the shelves4 ,the portrait alone was still in a frame of strangely white light4 ,it was as if ,apollo could not tear himself away from the face of one who had been his ardent devotee4 ,after a while ,i observed1 or thought ,i did1 with a sensation of mingled horror and delight1 that the eyes of the portrait were moving towards me4 ,i took courage and uttered my wish1 and asked ,selden outright whether now1 after he had spent centuries in the ,elysian fields with ,pericles and ,plato1 whether he still was of opinion that liberty1 political liberty1 is the chief aim of a nation1 an aim to be secured at all prices4 ,thereupon ,i clearly saw how his eyes deepened1 and how the surface of their silent reserve began to ripple1 as it were1 and finally a mild smile went over them like a cloud over a ,highland lake4 ,that smile sent a shiver through my soul4 ,selden1 too1 doubts his maxim8 ,can political liberty be bought at too great a price8 ,are there goods more valuable than political liberty8 ,after ,i recovered from my first shock1 ,i boldly approached the smiling portrait1 and implored ,selden to help me4 ,and then1 in the silence of the deserted room1 ,i saw how his lips moved1 and ,i heard ,english sounds pronounced in a manner considerably different from what they are to-day4 ,they sounded like the bass notes of a clarionet1 and there was much more rhythm and cadence in them than one can hear to-day4 ,they were also of exquisite politeness1 and the words were1 one imagined1 like so many courtiers1 hat in hand1 bowing to one another1 yet with a ready sword at the side4 ,to my request he replied3 ,if it should fall out to be your fervent desire to know the clandestine truth of a matter so great and weighty1 ,i shall1 for the love of your devotion1 be much pleased to be your suitor and help4 ,do not hesitate to follow me4 ,with that he stepped out from the frame and stood before me in the costume of the time of the ,cavaliers4 ,he took me by the hand1 and in a way that seemed both natural and supernatural1 so strangely did ,i feel at that moment1 we left unseen and unnoticed the lofty room1 and arrived almost immediately after that at a place in the country that reminded me of ,kenilworth1 or some other part of lovely ,warwickshire4 ,it was night1 and a full moon shed her mysteries over trees1 valleys1 and mountains4 ,on a lawn1 in the midst of a fine wood of alders1 ,selden halted4 ,there were several persons present4 ,they struck me as being ,greeks2 their costume was that of ,athenians in the time of ,alcibiades4 ,i soon saw that ,i was right1 for they talked ancient ,greek4 ,selden explained to me that they had left ,elysium for a time1 in order to see how the world beneath was going on4 ,in their travels they had come to ,england1 and were anxious to meet men of the past as well as men of the present1 and to inquire into the nature and lot of the nation of which they had heard1 by rumour1 that it had something of the nature of the ,athenians1 much of the character of the ,spartans1 a good deal of the people of ,syracuse and ,tarentum1 and also a trait or two of the ,romans4 ,of those ,greeks ,i at once recognised ,pericles1 the son of ,xanthippus2 ,alcibiades1 the son of ,clinias2 ,plato1 the son of ,ariston2 ,euripides1 the son of ,mnesarchos2 moreover1 a man evidently an archon or high official of the oracle of ,delphi2 and in the retinue ,i saw sculpturesque maidens of ,sparta and charming women of ,argos1 set off by incomparably formed beauties of ,thebes1 and girls of ,tanagra smiling sweetly with stately daintiness4 ,selden was received by them with hearty friendliness1 and conversation was soon at its best1 just as if it had been proceeding in the cool groves of the ,academy at ,athens4 ,the first to speak was ,pericles4 ,he expressed to ,selden his great amazement at the things he had seen in ,england4 ,had ,i not governed the city of holy ,athena for thirty years1 he said1 ,i should be perhaps pleased with what ,i see in this strange country4 ,but having been at the head of affairs of a ,state which in my time was the foremost of the world2 and having always availed myself of the advice and wisdom of men like ,damon1 the musician-philosopher1 ,anaxagoras1 the thinker1 ,protagoras1 the sophist1 and last1 not least1 ,aspasia1 my tactful wife and friend1 ,i am at a loss to understand the polity that you call ,england4 ,what has struck me most in this country is the sway allowed to what we used to call ,orphic ,associations4 ,in ,athens we had1 in my time1 a great number of private societies the members of which devoted themselves to the cult of extreme1 unnatural1 and un-,greek ideas and superstitions4 ,thus we had thiasoi1 as we called them1 the members of which were fanatic vegetarians2 others1 again1 who would not allow their adherents to partake of a single drop of ,chian or any other wine2 others1 again1 who would under no circumstances put on any woollen shirt or garment4 ,but if any of these ,orphic mystagogues had arrogated to themselves the right of proposing laws in the ,public ,assembly1 or what this nation calls the ,parliament1 with a view of converting the whole ,state of ,athens into an ,association of ,orphic rites and mysteries1 then1 ,i am sure1 my most resolute antagonists would have joined hands with me to counteract such unholy and scurrilous attempts4 ,i can well understand that the ,spartans1 who are quite unwilling to vest any real power whatever in either their kings1 their assembly1 their senate1 or their minor officials1 are consequently compelled to vest inordinate power in their few ,ephors1 and in the constantly practised extreme self-control of each individual ,spartan4 ,in a commonwealth like ,sparta1 where the commune is allowed very little1 or no1 power2 where there are neither generals1 directors of police1 powerful priests or princes1 nor any other incumbents of great coercive powers2 in such a community the individual himself must needs be his own policeman1 his own priest1 prince1 general1 and coercive power4 ,this he does by being a vegetarian1 a strict ,puritan1 teetotaller1 melancholist1 and universal killer of joy4 ,here ,pericles was interrupted by the suave voice of ,selden1 who1 in pure ,attic1 corroborated the foregoing statements by a reference to the people called ,hebrews in ,palestine4 ,these men1 ,selden said1 were practically at all times so fond of liberty that they could not brook any sort of government in the form of officials1 policemen1 soldiers1 princes1 priests1 or lords whatever4 ,in consequence of which they introduced a system of individual self-control called ritualism1 by means of which each ,hebrew tied himself down with a thousand filigree ties as to eating1 drinking1 sleeping1 merrymaking1 and1 in short1 as to every act of ordinary life4 ,so that1 ,o ,pericles1 the ,hebrews are one big ,orphic ,association of extremists1 less formidable than the ,spartans1 but essentially similar to them4 ,selden had scarcely finished his remarks1 when ,alcibiades1 encouraged by a smile from ,plato1 joined the discussion1 and1 looking at ,pericles1 exclaimed3 ,my revered relative1 ,i have listened to your observations with close attention2 and ,i have also1 in my rambles through this country1 met a great number of men and women4 ,it seems to me that but for their ,orphic ,associations1 which here some people call ,societies of ,cranks and ,faddists1 the population of this realm would have one civil war after the other4 ,surely you all remember how1 in my youth1 misunderstanding as ,i did the ,orphic and mystery-craving nature of man1 ,i made fun of it1 and was terribly punished for it at the hands of ,hermes1 a god far from being as great as ,zeus1 ,apollo1 or ,dionysus4 ,little did ,i know at that time that the exuberance of vitality1 which ,i1 owing to my wealth and station in life1 could gratify by gorgeous chariot races at ,olympia under the eyes of all the ,hellenes1 was equally strong1 but yet unsatisfied1 in the average and less dowered citizens of my ,state4 ,my chequered experience has taught me that no sort of people can quite do without ,orphic mysteries1 and when ,i sojourned among the ,thracians1 ,i saw that those barbarians1 fully aware of the necessity of ,mysteries and ,orphic ,trances1 had long ago introduced festivals at which their men and women could give free vent to their subconscious1 vague1 yet powerful chthonic craving for impassioned daydreaming and revelry4 ,they indulge in wild dances on the mountains1 at night1 invoking the gods of the nether world1 indulging freely in the wildest form of boundless hilarity1 and rivalling in their exuberance the mad sprouting of trees and herbs in spring4 ,you ,laconian maidens1 usually so proud and cold and ,amazonian1 ,i call upon you to say whether in your strictly regulated polity of ,sparta you do not1 at times1 rove in the wildest fashion over the paths1 ravines1 and clefts of awful ,mount ,taygetus1 in reckless search of the joy of frantic vitality which your ,state ordinarily does not allow you to indulge in8 ,and you women of ,argos1 are you too not given to wild rioting at stated times8 ,have ,i not watched you in your religious revivals of fierce joy8 ,both the ,laconian and ,argive women admitted the fact1 and one of them asked3 ,do the women of this country not observe similar festivals8 ,i pity them if they don't4 ,and a ,theban girl added3 ,the other day we passed over ,snowdon and other mounts in a beauteous land which they call ,wales4 ,it is much like our own holy ,mount ,kithron4 ,why1 then1 do the women of this country not rove1 in honour of the god1 over the ,welsh mountains1 free and unobserved1 as we do annually over wild ,kithron8 ,they would do it gracefully1 for ,i have noticed that they run much better than they walk1 and they would swing the thyrsus in their hand with more elegance than the sticks they use in their games4 ,at that moment there arose from the haze and clouded mystery of the neighbouring woods a rocket of sounds1 sung by female voices and soon joined in the distance by a chorus of men4 ,the company on the lawn suddenly stopped talking1 and at the bidding of the ,delphic archon1 whom they called ,trichas1 they all went in search of ivy1 and1 having found it1 wreathed themselves with it4 ,the music1 more and more passionate1 came nearer and nearer4 ,from my place ,i could slightly distinguish1 in mid-air1 a fast travelling host of women in light dresses1 swinging the thyrsus1 dancing with utter freedom of beautiful movement1 and singing all the time songs in praise of ,dionysus1 the god of life and joy4 ,trichas solemnly called upon us to close our eyes1 and he intoned a pan of strange impressiveness1 imploring the god to pardon our presence and to countenance us hereafter as before4 ,but the ,laconian1 ,theban1 and ,argive maidens left us1 and soaring into air1 as it were1 joined the host of revelling women4 ,after a time the music subsided far away1 and nothing could be heard but the melodious soughing of the wind through the lank alder-trees4 99 99 99 99 99 ,then1 at a sign of ,trichas1 ,plato took the word and said3 ,you are aware1 my friends1 that whatever ,i have taught in my ,athenian days regarding the punishment of our faults at the hands of the ,powers of the ,netherworld1 all that has been amply visited upon me in the shape of commentaries written on my works by learned teachers1 after the fashion of savages who tattoo the beautiful body of a human being4 ,i may therefore say that ,i have at last come to a state of purification and castigation which allows one to see things in their right proportion4 ,thus1 with regard to this curious country in which we are just at present1 ,i cannot but think that while there is much truth in what all of you have remarked1 yet you do not seem to grasp quite clearly the essence1 or1 as we used to say1 the of the whole problem4 ,this nation1 like all of us ,hellenes1 has many centuries ago made up its mind to keep its political liberty intact and undiminished4 ,for that purpose it always tried to limit1 and in the last three hundred years actually succeeded in limiting1 or even destroying1 most of the coercive powers of the ,state1 the ,church1 the nobility1 the army4 ,selden not improperly compared them to the ,jews4 ,and as in the case of the ,jews1 so in the case of the ,english1 the lack of the coercive powers of ,state1 ,church1 nobility1 and army inevitably engendered coercive powers of an individual or private character4 ,this is called1 in a general word1 ,puritanism4 ,our ,spartans1 who would not tolerate public coercive corporate powers any more than do the ,english1 were likewise driven into an individual ,puritanism1 called their 1 which likewise consisted of fanatic teetotalism1 mutisme1 anti-intellectualism1 and other common features4 ,this inevitable ,puritanism in ,england assumed formerly what they call a ,biblical form2 now it feeds on teetotalism--that is1 it has become liquid ,puritanism4 ,i have it on the most unquestionable authority1 that the contemporary ,britons are1 in point of consumption of spirits and wine1 the most moderate consumers of all the ,european nations2 and the average ,french person1 for example1 drinks #aeb times more wine per annum than the average ,englishman4 ,even in point of beer1 the average ,belgian1 for instance1 drinks twice as much as the average ,englishman2 while the average ,dane drinks close on five times more spirits than the average ,briton4 ,yet all these facts will convert no one4 ,for1 since the ,puritan wants ,puritanism and not facts1 he can be impressed only by inducing him to adopt another sort of ,puritanism1 but never by facts4 ,accordingly1 they have introduced ,christian ,science1 or one of the oldest ,orphic fallacies1 which the ,medival ,germans used to call 'to pray oneself sound4' ,they have likewise inaugurated anti-vivisectionism1 vegetarianism1 anti-tobacconism1 ,sabbatarianism1 and a social class system generally1 which combines all the features of all the kinds of ,puritanism4 ,we in ,athens divided men only on lines of the greater or lesser political rights we gave them2 but we never drew such lines in matters social and purely human4 ,the freest ,athenian readily shook hands with a metic or denizen2 and we ate all that was eatable and good4 ,in ,england the higher class looks upon the next lower as the teetotaller looks upon beer1 the vegetarian upon beef1 or the ,sabbatarian upon what they call the ,continental ,sunday4 ,moreover1 there is in ,england1 in addition to the science of zoology or botany1 such as my hearer ,aristotle founded it1 a social zoology and botany1 treating of such animals and plants as cannot1 according to ,english class ,puritanism1 be offered to one's friends at meals4 ,thus1 mussels and cockles are socially ostracised1 except in unrecognisable form2 bread is offered in homoeopathic doses2 beer at a banquet is simply impossible2 black radishes1 a personal insult4 ,in the same way1 streets1 squares1 halls1 theatres1 watering-places--in short1 everything in the material universe is or is not 'class'2 that is1 it is subject or not subject to social ,puritanism4 ,all this1 as in the case of the ,hebrews1 who have an infinitely developed ritualism of eatables and drinkables1 of things 'pure' or 'impure'2 all this1 ,i say1 is the inevitable consequence of the unwillingness of the ,english to grant any considerable coercive power to the ,state1 the ,church1 the nobility1 the army1 or any other organised corporate institution4 ,they hate the idea of conscription1 because they hate to give power to the army1 and prefer to fall into the snares of faddists4 ,the coercive power which they will not grant in one form1 they must necessarily admit in another form4 ,they destroy ,puritanism as wielded by ,state or ,church1 and must therefore1 since coercive powers are always indispensable1 accept it as ,puritanism of fads4 ,what are the ,jews other than a nation of extreme faddists8 ,being quite apolitical1 as we call it1 they must necessarily be extremely ,orphic--that is1 extreme ,puritans4 ,political liberty is bought at the expense of social freedom4 ,nobody dares to give himself freely and naively2 he must needs watch with sickly self-consciousness over every word or act of his1 as a policeman watches over the traffic of streets4 ,and lest he betray his real sentiments1 he suppresses all gestures1 because gestures give one away at once4 ,one cannot make a gesture of astonishment without being really astonished at all1 and vice vers4 ,and so slowly1 by degrees1 the whole of the human capital is repressed1 disguised1 unhumanised1 and1 in a word1 sacrificed at the altar of political liberty4 ,the ,romans1 much wiser than the ,spartans1 gave immense coercive power both to corporate bodies1 such as the ,roman ,senate1 and to single officials1 such as a ,consul1 a ,censor1 a ,tribune1 or a ,prtor4 ,they therefore did not need any grotesque private coercive institutions or fads4 ,the ,english1 on the other hand1 want to wield such an empire as the ,roman1 and yet build up their polity upon the narrow plane of a ,spartan 4 ,in this there is an inherent contradiction4 ,they hamper their best intentions1 and must at all times1 and against their better convictions1 legislate for faddists1 because they lack the courage of their ,imperial mission4 ,empires want ,imperial institutions1 that is1 such as are richly endowed in point of political power4 ,offices ought to be given by appointment1 and not by competitive examinations1 if only for five or ten years4 ,the police ought to have a very much more comprehensive power1 and the schools ought to be subject to a national committee4 ,parliament must be ,imperial1 and not only ,british4 ,very much more might be said about the necessity of rendering this ,realm more apotelestic1 as we have called it1 but ,i see that ,euripides is burning to make his remarks1 and ,i am sure that he is able to give us the final expression of the whole difficulty in a manner that none of us can rival4 99 99 99 99 99 ,thereupon ,euripides addressed the company as follows3 ,for many1 many a year ,i have observed and studied the most life-endowed commonwealth that the world has ever seen1 ,athens4 ,i watched the ,athenians in their homes1 in the market-place1 in the law courts1 in peace and war1 in the theatre and in the temple1 at the holy places of ,eleusis and ,delphi1 their men as well as their women4 ,personally ,i long inclined towards a view of the world almost exclusively influenced by ,apollo4 ,i thought that as the sun is evidently the great life-giver of all existence1 so light1 reason1 system1 liberty1 and consummately devised measures constitute the highest wisdom of the community4 ,in all ,i wrote or said ,i worked for the great god of ,light1 and ,reason1 and ,progress4 ,i could not find words and phrases trenchant enough to express my disdain for sentiments and ideas discountenanced by ,apollo4 ,i persecuted and fiercely attacked all those dark1 chthonic1 and mysterious passions of which man is replete to overflowing4 ,i hated ,imperialism1 ,i adored ,liberty2 ,i extolled ,philosophy1 and execrated ,orphic ideas4 ,but at last1 when ,i had gone through the fearful experiences of the ,peloponnesian ,war1 with all its supreme glories and its unrelieved shames1 ,i learned to think otherwise4 ,i learned to see that as man has two souls in his breast1 one celestial or ,apollinic1 the other terrestrial or ,dionysiac1 so there are two gods1 and not one1 that govern this sub-lunar world4 ,the two are ,apollo and ,dionysus4 ,one rules the world of light1 of political power1 of scientific reason1 and of harmonious muses4 ,the other is the god of unreason1 of passion1 and wild enthusiasm1 of that unwieldy ,heart of ours which is fuller of monsters1 and also of precious pearls1 than is the wide ocean4 ,unless in a given commonwealth the legislator wisely provides for the cult of both gods1 in an orderly and public fashion1 ,dionysus or ,apollo will take fearful revenge for the neglect they suffer at the hands of short-sighted statesmen and impudent unbelievers4 ,in the course of our ,great ,war we have come into contact and conflict with many a non-,greek nation1 or people whom we rightly term ,barbarians4 ,for while some of them sedulously1 perhaps over-zealously1 worship ,dionysus1 they all ignore or scorn ,apollo4 ,the consequence is that the great god blinds them to their own advantages1 robs them of light and moderation1 and they prosper enduringly neither as builders of ,states nor as private citizens in their towns4 ,for ,apollo1 like all the gods1 is a severe god1 and his bow he uses as unerringly as his lyre4 ,it is even so with ,dionysus4 ,the nation that affects to despise him1 speedily falls a wretched victim to his awful revenge4 ,instead of worshipping him openly and in public fashion1 such a nation falls into grotesque and absurd eccentricities1 that readily degenerate into poisonous vices1 infesting every organ of the body politic and depriving social intercourse of all its charms4 ,the ,spartans1 although they allowed their women a temporary cult of the god ,dionysus1 yet did not pay sufficient attention to him1 worshipping mainly ,apollo4 ,they had1 in consequence1 to do much that tends to de-humanisation1 and1 while many admired them1 no one loved them4 ,it was this1 my late and hard-won insight into the nature of man1 which ,i wanted to articulate in the strongest fashion imaginable in my drama called the ,bacch4 ,i see with bitterness how little my commentators grasped the real mystery of my work4 ,if ,dionysus was to me only the symbol of wine and merrymaking1 why should ,i have indulged in the gratuitous cruelty of punishing the neglect of ,bacchus by the awful murder of a son-king at the hands of his own frenzied mother-queen8 ,all my ,hellenic sentiment of moderation shudders at such a ghastly exaggeration4 ,neither the myth nor my drama refers to wanton1 barbarous bloodshed2 and such scholars as assume archaic human sacrifices in honour of ,dionysus1 and 'survivals' thereof in ,dionysiac rites1 ought to be taken in hand by the god's own ,mnads and suffer for their impudence4 ,human sacrifices indeed1 but not such as are made by stabbing people with knives and bleeding them to physical death4 ,human sacrifices in the sense of a terrible loss of human capital1 of a de-humanisation caused by the browbeating of the ,heart--this and nothing else was the meaning of my drama4 ,and what country is a fuller commentary on the truth of my ,bacch than ,england8 ,here is a country that1 had ,dionysus been properly worshipped by its people1 might be the happiest1 brightest of all nations1 a model for all others1 and living like the gods in perpetual bliss--that is1 in perfect equilibrium of thought and action1 reason and sentiment1 beauty and moderation4 ,they have done much and successfully for ,pythian ,apollo2 they have established a solid fabric of ,liberty and ,imperial ,power2 various intellectual pursuits they have cultivated with glory2 and in their pans to ,apollo they have shown exquisite beauties of expression and feeling4 ,but ,dionysus they persistently want to neglect1 to discredit1 to oust4 ,instead of bowing humbly and openly to the god of enthusiasm1 of unreasoned lilt of sentiment and passion1 and of the intense delight in all that lives and throbs and vibrates with pleasure and joy2 they affect to suppress sentiments1 to rein in all pleasures1 and to cast a slur on joy4 ,and then the god1 seeing the scorn with which they treat him1 avenges himself1 and blinds and maddens them1 as he did ,king ,pentheus of ,thebes1 ,king ,perseus of ,argos1 the daughters of ,minyas of ,orchomenos1 ,proitos of ,tiryns1 and so many others4 ,the god ,dionysus puts into their hearts absurd thoughts and fantastic prejudices1 and some of them spend millions of money a year to stop the use of the ,bacchic gifts in a country which has long been the least drinking country in the white world1 and as a matter of fact drinks far too little good and noble wine4 ,others again are made by angry ,dionysus to or rage by adding to the #bej unofficial yearly fogs of the country1 fifty-two official ones1 which they call ,sundays4 ,again others1 instigated by the enraged god ,dionysus1 drive people to furor by their intolerable declamations against alleged cruelties to animals1 while they are themselves full of cruel boredom to human beings4 ,there is1 ,i note with satisfaction1 one among them who seems to have an inkling of the anger of the god1 and who has tried to restore1 in a fashion1 the cult of ,dionysiac festivals4 ,he calls his ,orphic ,association the ,salvation ,army4 ,they imitate not quite unsuccessfully the doings of the legs and feet of the true worshippers of ,dionysus2 but the spirit of the true cult is very far off from them4 ,and so ,dionysus1 ignored and looked down upon by the people of this country1 avenges himself in a manner the upshot and sum of which is not inadequately represented in my ,bacch4 ,and yet the example of the ,hellas of ,hellas1 or of the town of ,athens1 which all of them study in their schools1 might have taught them better things4 ,when1 by about the eighth or seventh century ,b4,c4 7as they say71 the cult of ,dionysus began to spread in ,greece1 the various ,states opposed it at first with all their power4 ,all these ,states were ,apollinic contrivances4 ,they were ordered by reasoned constitutions1 generally by one man4 ,in them everything was deliberately arranged for light1 order1 good rhythm1 clearness1 and system4 ,it was all in honour of ,apollo1 the city-builder4 ,naturally the leaders of those ,states hated ,dionysus4 ,however1 they were soon convinced of the might of the new god1 and1 instead of scorning1 defying or neglecting him1 the wise men at the head of affairs resolved to adopt him officially4 ,in this they followed 7,o ,trichas1 did they not87 the example of ,delphi1 which1 although formerly purely ,apollinic1 now readily opened its holy halls to the new god ,dionysus1 so that ever after ,delphi was as much ,dionysiac as it was ,apollinic4 ,at ,athens they honoured the new god so deeply and fully that1 not content with the ordinary rural sports and processions given in his honour1 the ,athenians created the great ,tragedy and ,comedy as a fit cult of the mighty god4 ,the ,athenians were paid to go to those wondrous plays1 where their ,dionysiac soul could and did find ample food1 and was thereby purged and purified1 or1 in other words1 prevented from falling into the snares of silly faddists of religious or other impostures4 ,but for those ,dionysiac festivals in addition to the cult of ,apollo1 the ,greeks would have become the ,chinese of ,europe4 ,why1 then1 do not the ,english do likewise8 ,why do they not build a mighty1 ,state-kept theatre1 or several of them8 ,why does their ,state try to pension decrepit persons1 and not rather help to balance young minds8 ,why have they no public agones or competitions in singing1 reciting1 and dancing8 ,they do officially1 next to nothing for music2 and if one of their strategi or ministers was known to be a good pianist or violinist1 as they call their instruments1 they would scorn him as unworthy of his post4 ,yet few of such strategi are the equals of ,epaminondas1 who excelled both in dancing and playing our harp4 ,but while they ignore music--that is1 ,dionysus' chief gift--they crouch before the unharmonious clamour of any wretched ,orphic teetotaller1 vegetarian1 or ,sabbatarian4 ,this is how ,dionysus avenges himself4 ,i see how uneasy they are with regard to the great might of the ,germans4 ,why1 then1 do they not learn to respect ,dionysus1 who was the chief help to the powerful consolidation of the ,german ,empire8 ,german music kept ,north and ,south ,germans intimately together2 it saved them from wasting untold sums of money1 of time1 of force1 on arid fads2 it paved the way to political intimacy4 ,had the ,english not neglected ,dionysus1 had they sung in his honour those soul-attaching songs which once learned in youth can never be forgotten1 they might have retained the millions of ,irishmen1 who have left their shores1 by the heart-melting charm of a common music4 ,from the lack of such a delicate but enduring tie1 the ,irish had to be held by sterile political measures only4 ,in music there is infinitely more than a mere tinkling of rhythm2 there is ,dionysus in it4 ,their teachers of politics sneer at ,aristotle because he treats solemnly of music in his ',politics4' ,but ,aristotle told me himself that he sneers at them1 seeing what absurd socialistic schemes they discuss because they do not want to steady the souls of their people by a proper cult of ,dionysus4 ,socialism is doomed to the fate of ,pentheus at the terrible hands of ,dionysus4 ,socialism despises ,dionysus2 the god will speedily drive it to madness4 ,see1 friends1 we must leave--yonder ,apollo is rising2 he wants to join ,dionysus1 who passed us a little while ago4 ,should both stay in this country1 and should they both be properly worshipped1 we might from time to time come back again4 ,at present ,i propose to leave forthwith for the ,castalian springs4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #a3 ,reprinted1 with permission1 from the ,nineteenth ,century and ,after for ,july #aijh4 ,,the ,,seventh ,,night ,,socrates1 ,,diogenes1 ,,and ,,plato ,,on ,,religion ,during the seventh night the gods and heroes met again at ,rome in the ,coliseum4 ,the splendid moon hung deep from the sky like a huge lantern1 and shed her mild and plaintive rays over all the immense building4 ,the immortals1 in their light dresses and lighter movements1 formed a gorgeous contrast to the sombre stones of the vast edifice4 ,when all had taken their seats1 ,zeus rose in all his majesty and spake3 ,gods and heroes6 ,we have derived much exquisite distraction from the stories of ,alcibiades1 ,diogenes1 ,plato1 ,aristotle1 ,columbus and ,csar about the various features of lay-life in ,england4 ,if now ,i call upon you1 ,socrates1 to tell us something about the religious life of the ,english1 it is1 ,i need hardly assure you1 not in a spirit of mockery that ,i do so4 ,what we here think about it all1 we know1 and need not utter it4 ,when ,athena in her indignation more than once asked me to hurl my lightning into her former abode at ,athens1 into the remains of the ,parthenon1 ,i told her something in secret--she knows what1--and did not touch the holy temple4 ,even so shall ,i deal with the temples of the little ones4 ,we shall listen to you1 ,socrates1 with sympathy and attention4 ,up rose the sturdy figure of the sage4 ,his features had become even more illuminated with humanity1 and thus more divine1 and over his face erred a mild smile4 ,he spoke as follows3 ,o ,zeus and the other gods and heroes6 ,in my mortal time ,i frequently listened to the marvellous stories of ,herodotus1 and while ,i never permitted myself to question his honesty1 as later on ,plutarch did1 yet ,i could not help doubting some of his tales about the religions of the various peoples he describes4 ,had ,i then known and learnt what ,i have learnt since in ,england1 ,i should not have felt the slightest doubt regarding his statements4 ,i had been in ,england for some time before ,i began to understand something of their curious religions4 ,for1 they have not one religion1 but quite a number of such4 ,at first ,i thought they had different religions according to the boundaries of their different counties4 ,i fancied that such a neat geographical distribution might render the whole matter more methodic4 ,but ,i found that that was not the case4 ,in the same way ,i tried to find out whether their religions were not distributed according to their sixty different social classes4 ,this too did not work4 ,i then tried their professions2 after that1 their dress2 after that1 their income-tax2 then1 their private games4 ,in that way ,i finally came to reach the true lines of cleavage between their numerous religions4 ,for1 to put it briefly1 their religions are parallel to and dependent on each man's hobbies4 ,if1 for instance1 an ,englishman dislikes wine1 and thus leans towards ,puritanic ideas1 he will be much inclined to adopt the religion of one ,calvin1 who taught to enjoy life by killing all its joys4 ,another ,englishman1 being very partial to tobacco and to smoking1 will have a natural bent towards the ,high ,church1 in which much incense is burnt and much smoke produced4 ,another1 being very methodical and punctilious1 will regard ,methodism with much sympathy4 ,a fourth1 being afflicted with great susceptibility to moral shocks1 goes among the ,quakers4 ,in that way ,i began to feel my way through the maze of their religions4 ,the strangest thing1 however1 was that all these multifarious believers staunchly maintained that they took their divergent creeds from one and the same book3 from the ,bible4 ,in that respect they reminded me of my whilom adversaries at ,athens1 the ,sophists1 who could prove the pro and con of any given assertion with equal volubility4 ,in order to imbue myself fully with the spirit of their beliefs1 ,i frequently went to church on ,sundays4 ,to be quite frank1 ,i do not very well see why in ,england they call that day a ,sunday4 ,there is no sun in it1 and otherwise it resembles night more than anything else4 ,it ought to be called ,un-day4 ,i concluded that everything arranged for that day was done in order to bring out its resemblance to night ever so strongly4 ,thus1 lest people should forego sleep on that drowsy day1 the people of ,england have introduced thousands of soporifics in the shape of sermons4 ,what other use that drug may have ,i could never see4 ,to me as an old ,hellene it seemed a thing quite beyond comprehension1 why people should go out of their way to salary a person for making them feel creepy at the same place1 and on the same day of the week1 by repeating the same admonitions in nearly the same words hundreds of times a year4 ,evidently their lives on the other days of the week are so spiritless1 dull and dry1 that they want to get at least on ,sundays some moral hair-friction with spiritual eau de ,cologne4 ,we ,hellenes never thought of doing such things4 ,it would have struck us as a personal insult to suppose that we needed such perpetual moralisation at stated times4 ,hippocrates told me that some constitutions do need the constant use of purgative waters4 ,but do all people suffer from ethical constipation8 ,i could not help smiling at the idea of my preaching like that to the ,athenians of my time4 ,they would have handed me the goblet with hemlock long before they did do it4 ,each householder would have considered my pretensions to moralise them as a slander on his private life4 ,each of them tried to make his own house a chapel full of constantly practised piety1 dutifulness1 and humanity4 ,what need had he of my sermons8 ,when he joined the great festivals of the city1 it was to do his duty by the other ,athenians1 just as he joined the army on land1 or the navy on sea1 for the same purpose4 ,we knew of no dogmas4 ,we did not think that a man need stake all his soul on the belief in certain abstract dogmas4 ,if he did not feel inclined to linger on one story told of ,zeus1 he might lovingly dwell on any other of the numberless stories told of him4 ,if some said that ,zeus was born in ,crete1 others maintained that he was born elsewhere4 ,it seemed to us immaterial whether this fact or that was or was not historically exact4 ,not so the little ones4 ,for them religion is viewed as a matter of documentary evidence1 like a bill of sale4 ,they constantly clamour for 'evidence1' 'proofs' and 'verifications4' ,their theologians are solicitors and barristers1 but not religious men4 ,if ,i had asked ,pericles for 'evidences' of the religious cult practised by his family or gens1 the ,alcmonid1 he would have indignantly told his slaves to put me out of the house1 just as if ,i had asked him to give me 'evidences' of his wife's virtue4 ,we held that ,religion is not a matter of 'evidences1' any more than ,life1 ,health1 ,sleep1 or ,dreams stand in need of being 'proved' by 'evidences4' ,we know that we live1 or that we are in good health2 we do not care to listen to long-winded arguments proving it4 ,on my rambles in ,england ,i met many a clergyman4 ,i remember one who occupied a high position at ,canterbury1 and was a very learned man4 ,i was rather curious to learn what he thought of the religion of the ,greeks4 ,he treated me to the following remarks3 ',the ,religion of the ,greeks8 ,why1 my dear sir1 they had none4 ,the ,greeks were pagans1 heathens4 ,they believed in all sorts of immoral stories about immoral gods and goddesses2 they were sunk in wholesale corruption and rottenness4 ,their vices smelt to heaven4 ,did ever any ,greek say that he who smiteth you on your left cheek1 ought to be offered your right cheek too8' ',no1' ,i said1 continued ,socrates1 'we never said that1 because we knew that nobody would ever do it4 ,we did so many noble actions at home and in war that we never felt the urgency of exaggerating actions in words1 that we never did in fact4' ',is that it8' he answered4 ',do you mean to say that we only say such things1 because we never practise them8' ',precisely1' said ,i4 ',incapable of the deed1 you try to embrace its shadow1 the word1 as ,democritus said4' ',even if we never practised them1 is it not sublime to say them8 ,is it not increasing our moral worth when we profess to be gentle and generous and superhumanly good1 not exactly on the day when we make such professions1 but possibly on some subsequent day8' ',i am afraid1' said ,i1 'this we used to call the talk of sycophants and hypocrites4' ',but for my ,religion1 sir1 ,i should reply in very offensive terms4 ,we are no hypocrites4 ,we believe what we say1 and all that is required is to believe4 ,we do not trouble about the application of our beliefs1 any more than the mathematician troubles about the practical application of his theorems4' ',this is my very objection to your belief4 ,religion is not a theorem but an action1 an active sentiment4 ,our religion was like our language3 all active verbs1 all movement and energy1 all expression and sentiment1 but no theorems4' ',but just look at the superstition and downright fiction in all your mythology6 ,who has ever seen ,apollo1 ,dionysus1 the ,graces1 ,aphrodite1 or any other of your numberless gods8 ,they are all mere phantasies1 meant to amuse1 but not to elevate4 ,they belong to the infancy of the religious sentiment1 and are only a more artistic form of ,fetishism4' ',i quite believe you1' ,i said1 'that you never met the ,graces1 nor ,aphrodite4 ,perhaps they avoided you as carefully as you did them4' ',sir1 this is frivolous4 ,in our ,religion there is nothing frivolous4 ,allow me to be quite frank with you4 ,it is stated that you confessed to having felt the touch of some ,phryne's beautiful hand on your shoulder for several days4 ,sir1 this characterises you1 and all the heathen ,greeks4 ,my mind staggers at the idea that one of our bishops should ever confess to such a frivolous sentiment4 ,we too have shoulders2 and there are still alas6 ,phrynes amongst us4 ,but none of our class would ever confess to having felt what you admitted to have felt4 ,there you have precisely the difference between you and us4' ',you are ashamed of your humanity1 and we were not2 this is the whole difference4 ,we were so full of our humanity1 that we humanised even our gods4 ,you are so ashamed of your humanity1 that you de-humanise and supra-humanise your god4' ',disgraceful1 sir1 most disgraceful4 ,our humanity is in ,god6' ',and only in ,him2 so that none is left in you4' ,at these words1 continued ,socrates1 the man left me4 ,a few days later ,i was at a place which they call ,oxford1 and where dwell and teach many of their ,sophists4 ,a young man is there taught to assume that callous look which is very imposing to ,hindoos and negroes4 ,nothing surprises him1 as nothing stirs him1 except the latest shape of a cuff or a collar4 ,he becomes in due time a curious blend of a monk1 a fop1 and a pedant4 ,i was led to one of the most renowned of their theologians1 whose name in our language means a coachman4 ,he received me with a curious smile4 ,before ,i could say anything he spoke as follows3 ',i understand1 sir1 that you pose as the late ,socrates4 ,well1 well--come1 come6 ,i must tell you in confidence that ,i1 being a higher critic1 am a perfect adept in the great science of the vanishing trick4 ,suppose you bring forward a famous personage of history1 and want him to disappear4 ,nothing is easier to me4 ,i ask the man first of all very simple questions1 such as3 ',who asked him to exist8 ',why did he choose his mother in preference to many other able women8 ',what made him prefer his father to so many other capable men8 ',for what reason did he fix his particular place of birth1 let alone the time of the year1 month1 week and day where and when he was born8 ',what motive had he in filling the air with his screamings soon after his birth8 ',could he give any satisfactory explanation of his various illnesses as a child8 ,that is1 whether he had measles and whooping-cough out of malice prepense1 out of cussedness1 or out of any hopes of receiving more attention8 ',when the man cannot satisfactorily answer these clear and positive questions1 ,i put him down first as a suspect4 ,then ,i proceed to further questions4 ',if he is said to have won a battle1 ,i ask him why he fought it on land and not on sea8 ,or vice vers4 ',why he did not1 while fighting the battle1 accurately determine the degrees of longitude and latitude of the locality of the battle8 ',or why his chief general's name began with an ,l and not with an ,s8 ',if he is said to have been an ancient legislator1 ,i ask him why he took his laws from his neighbours8 ',what mode of registration and publication of the law he observed8 ',whether the paper of his code was hand-made1 or wood-pulp8 ',whether the water-marks on it were original or were imitations8 ',whether he used ink or paint8 ',whether he wrote them standing or sitting8 ',whether he used the same pen for writing his nouns and verbs8 ,or whether he had different pens for the different parts of speech8 ',whether he really knew what a noun was8 ,whether he liked male terminations1 or preferred to revel in female endings8 ,whether he was not prejudiced against pronouns1 or felt an idiosyncracy against the letters b1 k1 and z8 ',if the man cannot satisfactorily answer all these pertinent questions1 ,i declare him to be a fraud4 ,i tell him straight into his face that he never existed1 and then ,i revile him as a low character for pretending an existence that is totally unfounded4 ,now1 as to your case4 ,you say1 you are ,socrates4 ,can you answer any of the questions ,i enumerated8 ,let us take the first question3 ,who asked you to exist8' ',athens1 ,i presume1' said ,socrates4 ',athens8 ,to dispose of this answer1 we must first of all see whether ,athens existed4 ,i put it to you1 sir1 can you prove that ,athens existed8' ',i can2 for1 it still exists4' ',note the glaring fallacy6 ,a thing that now exists1 now1 that is1 on the brink of the present and the future1 can that be said to have eo ipso existed in the past8 ,i put it to you most seriously1 is the brink of the present1 the past8 ,is the brink of the future1 the past8 ,can1 then1 the brink of the present and the future be called the past8 ,athens may have existed4 ,that is1 a number of houses and streets1 once called ,athens1 may have existed4 ,but can you say1 ,i put it to you most mostly1 can you say that the houses of ,athens asked you to exist8 ,or did the streets do so8' ',by ,athens we mean the ,athenians4' ',oh1 ,i see1 the ,athenians4 ,who were they8 ,two-thirds were foreign slaves2 one-fifth were metiks1 that is1 denizens of foreign extraction4 ,consequently1 two-thirds and one-fifth being thirteen-fifteenths1 the overwhelming majority of the town being uitlanders1 you cannot possibly be said to have been asked into existence by them4 ,remain two-fifteenths of ,athenians proper4 ,of these the great majority were your enemies1 who drove you into death4 ,can they1 who furiously clamoured for your death1 be said to have violently wished for your birth8 ',remain1 therefore1 only a handful of ,athenians who may have desired you to exist4 ,how could they give due expression to their wish8 ,in the ,assembly matters were decided by a majority1 which they did not control4 ,in the law courts were hundreds1 nay thousands of judges in each case1 of whom1 as per supra1 the great majority were your enemies1 who would have decided against your birth4 ,in the ,temples such decisions were never taken4 ',the intention of your prenatal friends could thus remain but a mere private wish of a few citizens1 but could not possibly be an inherent tendency or desire of ,athens4 ,quod erat demonstrandum4 ,and since you have been unable to give a satisfactory answer to the first of the crucial questions1 ,i put you down as a suspect4' ,i did not say anything1 said ,socrates4 ,i was amazed beyond expression that such nonsense could be allowed to pose as searching and 'scientific' analysis of facts4 ,but he triumphantly continued3 ',you say nothing8 ,qui tacet consentire videtur1--silence means consent4 ,i can see in your face how overawed you are by my sagacity1 ,i have unmasked you4 ,we unmask everything and anything4 ,we unmask stones1 pyramids1 crocodiles1 ichneumons1 princes1 kings1 prophets1 and heroes4 ,we strike terror into the common people by our vast erudition and our penetrating sagacity4 ',we are the ,sherlock ,holmes of theology4 ',we run down any pretender1 any scribe1 any man who has the impudence of posing as a somebody4 ,given that we are not much2 how can he be anything8 ',if you will stay here for some time1 you will soon know a lot about what did not happen in ancient ,israel4 ',oxford is the ,scotland ,yard of all those humbugs that pass by the name of ,abraham1 ,moses1 ,king ,david1 ,samson1 the ,prophets1 and other impostors4 ,we have pin-pricked them out of existence6 ',at present we have proved that all the ,religion of ,israel was stolen from ,babylon4 ,in a few years we shall prove that the ,babylonians stole it all from the ,elamites1 farther east4 ,this1 once well established1 will give us a welcome means of proving that the ,elamites stole it all from the ,thibetans2 who stole it from the ,chinese2 who stole it from the ,japanese2 who stole it from the ,redskins in ,america2 who stole it from the ,yankees2 who stole it from ,oxford4 ,and so we shall return to this great ,university and provide occupation and fame for the higher critics of the next three hundred years4 ,where are you now1 ,o ,pseudo-,socrates8' ,i was unable to say a word for some time4 ,when ,i collected myself to a certain extent1 ,i said3 ',o ,sophist1 if our ,religion in ancient ,greece had had no other advantage than that of saving us from the works of higher critics1 it has deserved well of us4 ,we were immune from that disease1 at any rate4 ,dion of ,prusa and others wrote declamations against the historicity of the ,trojan ,war2 but nobody took them for more than what they were1 for rhetorical exercises4 ,no ,hellene would have paid the slightest attention1 nor accorded the slightest recognition to men like yourself4 ,the ,english must be suffering from very ugly religious crochets and spiritual eczemas1 to have recourse to drugs and pills offered by such medicine-men4' 99 99 99 99 99 ,other friends in ,england to whom ,i expressed my profound aversion to this puny scepticism in matters of ,religion1 advised me to attend the sermons given by a relatively young man with white hair in a temple in the city4 ,they said that in him and his addresses there was religious sentiment4 ,i accepted their advice and went repeatedly to hear what was called ,the ,new ,religion4 ,the young man talked well and impressively4 ,he told them that two and two made four1 and absolutely refused to make five4 ,with much emphasis he declared that he could not believe in miracles1 because of the miraculous way in which they happened4 ,if1 he said1 a miracle should happen in an orderly fashion1 performed under police revision1 say1 in ,regent ,street in front of ,peter ,robinson's1 the arrangement and whole sequence of the procedure being duly anticipated and announced by the ,daily ,nail or the ,daily ,x-,rays1 then indeed he would say3 ',o ,lord1 ,o ,lord1 ,i am convinced4' ',but1' the white-haired young man said1 'how can you1 the rest of the world1 or anyone else suppose that ,i could believe a miracle1 that pops in from mid-air1 in the most disorderly and unreasonable fashion1 without having given notice either to the police or to the editor of the ,daily ,nail or the ,daily ,x-,rays8 ',such a miracle is a mere vagrant1 a loafer1 a dclass or dracin1 as we say in ,burmese4 ,it has neither documents to legitimate itself with1 nor any decent social connections4 ,it disturbs the professor of physics at that great seat of untaught knowledge1 the ,london ,university2 it annoys all chemists1 and confirms my colleagues in the other pulpits in their preposterous superstitions4 ',my brethren and sithren1 ,i tell you there are no miracles2 there never were any2 there never can be any4 ,just let me tell you an interesting experience ,i had the other day with a man who travelled in the south of ,france1 a country which1 but for the fact that ,england is good enough to patronise her1 would long since have disappeared from the surface of this or any other planet4 ',the gentleman in question spoke of ,lourdes1 and the miracles he had seen there4 ,i listened for a while with patience2 at last ,i could bear it no longer1 and the following dialogue arose between us3 ,he3 ',lourdes is the most convincing case of the miraculous power of the true ,church4 ,i3 ',the true ,church is in the city of ,london1 sir1 and there is no miracle going on there whatever4 ,he3 ',i completely differ1 especially if1 for argument's sake1 ,i accept your statement that the temple in the city is the true ,church4 ,if that be so1 then the miracles wrought there are even greater than those observable at ,lourdes4 ,i3 ',i thank you for your rapid conversion4 ,i am glad to see that you feel the power of my ,church4 ,this power comes from the great truths ,i teach4 ,but as to miracles proper1 ,i must1 if reluctantly1 decline the honour4 ,i repeat it1 there are no miracles in my ,church1 neither taught nor wrought4 ,he3 ',come1 come6 ,not only are there miracles in your ,church1 but they are also of the very same type that ,i noted at ,lourdes4 ,i3 ',sir1 how can you insult me so gratuitously8 ,lourdes swarms with so-called miracles1 which are no miracles at all1 but only the effects of auto-hypnotisation4 ,a person who can believe in the healing power of ,st ---- ,he3 ',steady1 steady1 my dear sir4 ,i do not allude to that healing power at all4 ,again1 placing myself on your standpoint1 ,i will1 for argument's sake1 admit that the waters at ,lourdes have no miraculous healing power owing to the influence of this saint or that4 ,you might permit me to remark1 nevertheless1 that it is just as much of a miracle as when the drugs prescribed by our doctors happen to cure us4 ,for1 what could be more miraculous than that8 ,but this is only by the way4 ,i allude to quite another miracle1 and ,i can only express my amazement that you do not guess it more quickly4 ,i3 ',i am quite out of touch with miracles4 ,he3 ',bravo6 ,this is precisely what the great ,lessing used to say3 the greatest of all miracles is the one that people do not notice as such at all4 ,just consider3 do you not draw vast masses of people to your sermons8 ,have you not persuaded most of them that you have founded a new ,religion8 ,what on earth could be more miraculous than that6 ',in your sermons you dance on a thin rope of logic made out of the guts of a few anmic cats dropped from the dissecting table of science4 ,if therefore you had won a reputation as a rope-dancer1 one could readily understand it4 ,but you have won the reputation of a founder of a new religion1 which is to a logical rope what catguts are to a great violinist4 ,is that not marvellous8 ,savonarola would have charged you1 at best1 with blacking his shoes1 and yet people take you for a modern ,savonarola4 ,is that not marvellous8 ,is it anything short of a miracle8 ,is not this the very miracle of ,lourdes8 ,hundreds of thousands of intelligent ,frenchmen believe in the healing power of water in consequence of its canonisation by a saint4 ,is this not a miracle in our time8 ,i3 ',if ,i am to be infinitely less worthy a man than ,savonarola because ,i believe in the infinity and truth of ,science1 ,i gladly forego the honour4 ,the more light we pour into the human heart1 the nobler it will be4 ,he3 ',so you believe that your hearers follow you on account of the light you give them8 ,pray1 abandon any such idea forthwith4 ,they cling to you because of your interesting personality1 and because you give satisfaction to their vanity4 ,in persuading them that the life-blood of the 'old' ,religion is mere stale water1 they congratulate themselves on their being intellectually superior to the orthodox believers4 ',is there no one who has the courage to say aloud that the canker of all ,religions in ,england is their constant toadying to ,reason and ,science8 ,the theory of ,evolution1 first rightly condemned by the clergy1 is now an established costume without which no bishop would dare to officiate in sermons or books4 ,naturalists all over the world lustily attack and combat ,evolution2 but no ,english clergyman ventures to doubt it4 ,he will and must toady to what he thinks is ',science4' ',formerly ,science was the ancilla1 or maid of ,theology2 now ,theology is the mere charwoman of any physiologist or biologist4 ,i3 ',and so it shall be4 ,i see1 my good man1 ,i must talk to you a little more plainly4 ,we theologians want nothing but authority4 ,we have long since learned that this world is governed by authority1 and by nothing else2 just as is the next world1 if there be any4 ,now1 in former times ,science was not imposing enough4 ,being1 as it was1 in its infancy1 it had little authority4 ,so we trampled upon it1 and side-tracked it with disdain4 ,at present1 on the other hand1 ,science has become quite an influential member of society4 ,it goes on doing marvellous things and inventing incredible feats of physical1 chemical1 or biological triumph4 ',what is more natural than that we now not only receive the homo novus1 the man of ,science1 but that we also try to avail ourselves of the authority his exploits give him8 ',take this nation4 ,it is thoroughly materialist and on its knees before ,science4 ,for the last sixty years ,science1 and nothing but physical ,science has been knocked into its head4 ,this nation thinks that any study outside ,science proper is pleasant humbugging4 ,they are completely ignorant of human history4 ,give us ,science6 ,give us facts1 facts6 ,of course they say so1 because facts save them the trouble of thinking1 and do not allow one to pose as a thinker4 ',facts1 scientific facts1 that is all that they want4 ,human thought1 they think1 is a physical excretion from the brain1 just as tears are from the lachrymal glands1 or other liquids from the kidneys4 ,hence1 they infer1 all that is needed is to study1 in a physiological laboratory1 the brain4 ',what's the use of literary history1 for instance8 ,if you want to know it1 you have only to study the brain which is the cause of at least some portions of literature4 ',what is the use of military history8 ,study1 in a physiological laboratory1 the arm1 not arms2 since it is the arm that fights4 ',what is the use of ,sociology1 say1 the study of the ,family8 ,study1 in a physiological laboratory1 the nerves of certain organs which constitute the true cause of families4 ,and similarly with all other studies relating to the humanities4 ,science2 it is all a matter of ,science proper4 ',under these conditions1' the white-haired one continued1 'what can we do but take the requisite authority there where we find it best developed1 in ,science8 ,anything that pleases the grand seigneur1 we hasten to acquiesce in while shoe-licking him4 ,science proper1 that is1 ,physics1 ,chemistry1 and ,physiology disavow ,imponderables1 ,tendencies1 ,present ,projections of the ,future1 ,incomprehensibles1 etc41 etc42 so do we4 ',science cannot move from certain mathematical principles2 speedily we too cry aloud that we cannot cease hugging these dear principles4 ',science can never analyse or reconstrue the mystery of all mysteries3 ,personality2 at once we novel theologians exclaim1 beating our worn breasts1 that ,personality is no historic force at all4 ',science cannot possibly so much as approach the problem of creativeness1 creation1 or origin of life2 hence we gallop after it like newsboys1 screaming at the top of our voices3 ,latest news6 ,no creation6 ,no origins6 ,bill just passed6 ,enormous majority6 ,one penny6 ,latest news6 ',cannot you see that8 ,can you not grasp that as in ,republican countries we are ,republicans1 and in ,monarchical ones1 ,monarchists2 even so in an age overawed by the surface-scratchers of physical ,science1 we too must feel the itch and scratch away with violence8 ',we cannot possibly afford to forego the authority at present in the gift of ,science4 ,how could ,i dare to treat ,jesus as one of those mysterious persons that bring to a head both vast and secular tendencies of the ,past1 and ,present ,projections of an immense ,future8 ,he1 ,i hear from a certain humanist1 was the heir of all that marvellous ,power of ,personality1 called ,cephalism1 which shaped all classical antiquity2 and at the same time ,he was the ,anticipative ,projection of a vast ,future4 ',perhaps4 ',but could any process approved by ,science proper be applied to such a mode of thinking8 ,none4 ,consequently ,i am bound to belittle1 to ignore it4 ',as long as ,jesus is not amenable to that mode of biography or to that kind of reflections which we apply to the life of cockroaches or gnats1 we cannot seriously speak of ,him4 ',or is not ,his preaching like the laying of eggs by a bird1 out of which eggs new birds arise in due time8 ',is not ,his ,church like the nest of a spotted woodpecker made in the hollow of some ancient tree8 ',are not ,his apostles like the watch-birds amongst wandering cranes8 ',if1 then1 we want to study ,him scientifically1 we must treat ,him and ,his exactly as we treat a hoopoe or a jackdaw4 ,not that we really know anything about a hoopoe or a jackdaw4 ,but in treating ,him in that fashion we can use all the sounding terms of ,science1 and thus1 don't you see1 secure all the authority of which ,science to-day has so plentiful a share4 ',i have so far founded the ,new ,religion4 ,but ,i am not quite satisfied with it4 ,i feel we need a ,newest ,religion4 ,ever since my birth the world has stepped into a new era4 ,something has been wrenched from its former place4 ,i must at once see to it4 ',meanwhile ,i am preparing a ,life of ,jesus on a truly scientific basis4 ,the ,lives hitherto published are completely out of date4 ,they lack the true scientific spirit4 ',my ,life of ,jesus will have three sections4 ,the first will contain the ,antecedents4 ,i will start with the soil1 the air1 and the waters of ,palestine4 ,i will investigate the influence which the geology of ,palestine had on ,jesus2 especially1 whether the stratification of that soil does not correspond to the stratification of the mind of ,jesus4 ,in that way ,i will obtain the precise nomenclature of the various layers of the intellect1 human and ,messianic1 of ,jesus4 ',thus1 ,i will determine his palolithic1 neolithic1 pliocene1 miocene and other tertiary mental formations4 ,that will be inestimable4 ',i will then proceed to a close analysis of the air in ,palestine1 and try to determine how much argon it contains4 ,this1 together with the jargon talked round ,bethlehem1 and a close study of the remains of the ,king ,sargon will give me a solid foundation for my researches into the feelings of ,jesus4 ,i will thus make sure whether these feelings were subconscious1 auto-hypnotic1 auto-,rntgenising1 roplanesque1 or zeppelinury4 ',should ,i find some radium in the stones near ,bethlehem or ,nazareth1 ,i shall be enabled to account for the precociousness and light-emitting gift of ,jesus4 ',once ,i have thus settled the ,antecedents1 ,i will proceed to ,his life4 ,in accordance with the method of zoologists and biologists1 to whom one fox is as good as another1 and one rabbit as serviceable as another1 ,i will study the daily life of a modern rabbi in ,sichem1 or ,jerusalem4 ',i will measure his nose1 his lips1 the width and height of his mouth when yawning and when asleep1 his weight1 his rapidity of walk1 the loudness of his voice1 his pulse1 his heart1 his meals1 and his drinks4 ,this will give me valuable data for the life of ,jesus4 ,i will reduce all these data to finely-drawn statistical tables4 ',as soon as ,i shall be in possession of these tables ,i will attack the most important part of my work3 ,i will not tire until ,i discover the microbe which imparted to all that ,jesus said an extraordinary power of captivation4 ,that microbe1 ,i have no doubt1 can be distilled from a comparative solution of ,zoroaster1 ,buddha1 ,confucius1 ,mahomet and ,jesus4 ,i name it microbus prophetizans ,huxleyi4 ,i shall1 ,i trust1 isolate it and send specimens to the ,south ,kensington ,museum1 ,i will----' 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the white-haired one1 said ,socrates1 had arrived at that stage of his wanderings1 ,i left the hall4 ,i felt sea-sick4 ,these little ones think that they can triangulate the human personality1 because they have triangulated many of their countries4 ,they never consider that triangulation1 and all scientific methods1 refer1 and can refer only to quantity or material quality4 ,there is no geometry of love1 hatred1 or spiritual power4 ,it is the old error of the ,pythagoreans which you1 ,o ,pythagoras1 admitted to me after having whiled in ,olympus for a few hundred years4 ,numbers are not the souls of things4 ,personality is the soul of things4 ,we humans are pre-eminently creative4 ,our chief force is not intellect nor will-power4 ,we are neither ,hegelians nor ,schopenhauerians4 ,in point of sagacity many an animal transcends us2 and did you not avow to me1 ,o ,leibniz1 that the difference between you and a yokel is not so much in your being more intellectual1 or in your having more brain-power1 but in your having more creative power8 ,intellect1 or the force of close thinking1 may be found in abundance in the city of ,london4 ,had people devoted as keen an interest to science or philosophy as city men do to money transactions1 we should be much further than we are4 ,but people differ very much less in power of intellect than in strength of originality4 ,the great men of ,literature or ,science or ,art are not very much cleverer in point of intellect than is the rest of the people4 ,they exceed them in point of originality2 that is1 they exceed them because they devote themselves to digging in unbroken ground4 ,it is in this way they create4 ,it is in this sense that each human is1 to a certain extent1 new ground2 and consequently1 that the ,great ,humans are absolutely new phenomena4 ,in other words1 they are new creations4 ,they have an ,x in them that no x-rays can penetrate into4 ,science can comprehend averages only4 ,nova she cannot approach4 ,this is why ,great ,humans have invariably been disavowed1 rejected1 and pooh-poohed by men of ,science4 ,why has a lily of the valley bell-like blossoms8 ,science will never explain it4 ,those bells are part of the personality of the lily2 and ,science can understand it as little as a crofter could understand a refined ,athenian4 ,you may imagine1 ,o gods and heroes1 what ,i felt when ,i heard so many clergymen talk so 'scientifically' of ,the ,greatest of ,humans1 who by ,his being so was eo ipso ,supra-human too4 ,science is unable to account for a lily of the valley2 and yet shall ,science be able to reconstruct ,jesus8 ,i should have shrunk from the task of reconstructing1 in the manner of men of ,science1 my ,phrygian slave4 ,one can re-recreate1 as it were1 many of the phenomena of ,personality1 but not by the methods of ,science4 ,personalities belong to the ,humanities1 whose methods are totally different from those of ,science proper4 ,it was said of me that in my mortal time ,i brought ,philosophy from ,heaven to ,earth4 ,i wish1 ,o ,zeus1 you would allow me to mix again with the people in order to raise their ,philosophy from ,earth to ,heaven4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when ,socrates had finished1 a deep silence fell over the ,assembly4 ,in the divine face of ,zeus there was no movement to be noticed1 and not an encouraging word fell from his lips4 ,suddenly one heard a loud laughter4 ,everybody turned towards the place where the laughter came from1 and felt relieved to see that ,diogenes was preparing to address the ,assembly4 ,zeus nodded consent1 and the whilom ,cynic spake as follows3 ,few things have afforded me greater pleasure than your tale1 ,o ,socrates4 ,verily ,i believe that your renewed presence among the little ones is much less needed than is mine4 ,i am the only man that could set right the wrenched religious fibres of these mannikins and womenfolk4 ,but for my respect for you and the ,assembly1 ,i should have burst into an unseemly laughter while you were talking of their ,new ,religion1 which is but a resurrection-pie less the resurrection4 ,to talk to them seriously about the incapacity of any physical ,science or its methods to cope with the problems of ,religion is to waste precious time4 ,let them have their ,evolution1 ,convolution1 or ,devolution1 by all means4 ,the more they welter in it1 the more my pupils on earth have a welcome chance of success4 ,the official clergy think wonders of their cleverness in trying to make ,religion into a ,centaur1 half man1 half horse1 or half ,science and half ,belief4 ,while they are at it1 my pupils1 infinitely cleverer than all the clergy1 make glorious headway in all directions4 ,is it not side-splitting to note how these clergymen are unable to see that the more people learn of ,science proper2 the more they accustom their minds to the dry biscuits of scientific methods2 the more they will inwardly long for the drinks of ,mysticism8 ,the ,roman clergy1 trained by two thousand years1 knows all that but too well4 ,your plain soul1 your hard-working1 scientifically untutored peasant or small bourgeois is quite satisfied with a little1 hearty ,belief1 and is indifferent to ,mysticism and religious ,extravagancies4 ,it is your high-strung1 modern1 scientifically trained mind that impatiently craves more than sober ,science can give it4 ,just look at the ,europoids in the western continent4 ,in the ,united ,states everything is reasoned out1 systematised1 methodised to a nicety4 ,their whole life looks like their towns3 regular squares2 straight streets1 named after the consecutive numbers2 labelled1 docketed1 built and shaped according to definite rules4 ,in an ,american town nothing surprises one1 except that the people themselves do not have each his respective number painted on his back4 ,as the streets1 so are the ,constitution1 the ,schools1 the ,territory1--everything is ruled like a sheet of music4 ,in the #bej1jjj schools1 in the #ejj1jjj ,universities1 and the #fjj1jjj libraries1 all founded 7or confounded87 by a few multis1 you hear nothing but ,reason1 ,reason1 ,reason4 ,you get ,reason boiled1 roasted1 fried or stewed4 ,you get it from injectors1 from which it will jet out in smaller or larger jets1 so that if it be too much for you1 one can1 by pulling the piston backwards1 again store it up in the injector4 ,instead of traditions1 unarticulated tendencies1 latent sous-entendus1 and delicate imponderables1 there are only machines1 ledgers1 and registers1 articulated with a vengeance1 cryingly explicit and loud and indelicate4 ,everything is bound in the leather of reasonableness1 in the hide of method1 and in the wooden boards of ,logic4 ,instead of on the rich soup of sentiments1 men and women in the ,states are fed on scientific tabloids containing sentiments reduced to their ultimate chemical essences4 ,a woman laughs at romance2 her relations to men are 'reasonable4' ,a child laughs at piety2 his or her relations to parents are tanned by 'sense'6 ,a servant sneers at loyalty2 her relations to the masters are macerated in the vinegar of 'inalienable right of reason4' ,all this is excellent--for me4 ,for1 what happens8 ,the ,americans indulging in too many orgies of ,reasonableness2 the ,americans having thrown over-board all motives of historic truth in order to live under the banner of reasoned truth only1 have long since become sick of ,reason4 ,they resemble a crew on a big ship that has stored its pantries and larders with nothing else than meat-extracts and tabloids4 ,that crew1 after a month's journey or so1 will unfailingly sink or else eat the most loathsome fish rather than continue feeding on its scientific food4 ,after all1 when all is said and done1 the ,americans too are humans4 ,they too want more than tabloids and meat-extracts4 ,tons of tins will not replace one fresh cabbage4 ,on this eternal truth my disciples go to work in the ,states4 ,fully aware1 as they are1 that the ,americans must be and are deadly 'tired' of ,reason1 they hasten to give the people of the ,states the most exciting devices of ,unreason4 ,one of them invents ,mormonism2 the other1 ,spiritualism2 the third1 ,zionism2 the fourth1 ,oneidaism1 or general ,promiscuity2 the fifth1 ,christian ,science2 the sixth1 ,incarnationism2 and so forth1 and so on1 ad infinitum4 ,can my triumph be greater8 ,i will carefully avoid telling them that by worshipping ,apollo extravagantly while neglecting the great god ,dionysus1 they have fallen wretched victims to the wrath of the latter4 ,just let them go on writing contemptuous reflections on ,greek ,mythology1 and glory in the 'wonderful century' in which ,dionysus is declared to be a mere myth4 ,as long as they do that1 ,i shall not lack plenty of successful disciples1 and my name will wax greater and greater1 until nobody shall be able to find1 even did he use the latest ,edison lamp1 a single well-balanced human in all the ,states4 ,why1 then1 take so many ,english clergymen and their evolutions round ,evolution so gravely1 ,o ,socrates8 ,they do what the ,americans do3 they overdo ,reason4 ,do let them do it1 and do not disturb my circles1 as ,archimedes said4 ,i promise you1 when next they introduce the 'latest' evolution1 ,i will invite you to the sight1 and you will enjoy the fun as you have rarely enjoyed anything4 ,i have instructed a new set of pupils of mine to start ,the new ,religion in ,england4 ,the ',new ,religion' of a year or so ago is out of fashion4 ,what these decadent vibrants want is another ,religion4 ,i have just received a ,marconigram from below1 and am in a position to tell you all about the latest capers of my pupils4 ,may ,i do so8 ,diana and ,aphrodite and ,pallas ,athena at once applauded1 and their silvery laughter was joined by the rest of the gods and heroes4 ,dionysus sent two beautiful nymphs to make the resting-place of ,diogenes more comfortable1 and to offer him a cup of the wine of ,capri1 shining like gold and full of mirth4 ,diogenes1 deeply bowing to the ,great ,god1 and to ,zeus1 then proceeded3 ,i learn that ,the ,religion now to be started is based on what my dear disciples have agreed to call ,elysiograms2 a word formed la 'telegram1' 'marconigram1' and meant to denote messages from ,elysium4 ,it is quite evident that a generation of impatient eels such as the present instalment of the little ones1 cannot possibly wait until after death for news from the other world4 ,the sub-lunar world they have ransacked and swallowed1 hair and flesh1 and all4 ,before1 in the morning1 they have quite recovered from their sleep2 and before they have quite finished their nerve-destroying first cup of ,ceylon cabbage1 they have1 in their 'papers1' learnt all that has been going on in every quarter of the globe terrestrial4 ,that globe begins to bore them4 ,they must have a daily 7or hourly87 column or two about what is going on in ,elysium1 let alone in ,hades4 ,it is indispensable for their digestion4 ,just fancy how very much more easily one could swallow one's lunch with just a little dose of ,hades in it6 ,while one tries to make a tunnel through the stony meat from ,patagonia called ,scotch beef1 one would read with grim satisfaction how one's late creditor is maltreated in the torture-chamber of ,hades4 ,why1 one would feel so buoyant that one would even be able to finish a meal at the ,cecil4 ,you said1 ,o ,socrates1 that their clergy adopt ,evolution because of the authority it gives them4 ,surely1 they can tarry no longer in adopting the improved means of communication4 ,if ,marconi can wire wirelessly to ,new ,york1 how can the clergy stay lagging behind8 ,they must needs go one better1 and wire wirelessly to ,elysium4 ,nothing can be plainer4 ,people want it4 ,soon ,messrs ,wright will ascend the ,rainbow and sit astride on it4 ,even before that1 ,herr ,zeppelin will land the first ,german street-band on ,mars2 and1 probably1 ere that is done1 ,madame ,curie will by means of a rock of ,radium as big as ,st ,paul's illumine and read all the vast depths of the unexplored ,heavens4 ,how1 under these circumstances1 can the clergy remain behind8 ,it is unthinkable4 ,accordingly1 it is understood that the ,daily ,nail and the ,crony will have every day a column called ,elysiograms4 ,it will consist of single words1 numbers1 signs1 exclamations1 and pauses1 elysiogrammed from over there4 ,some paragraphs will consist of commas1 colons1 semi-colons1 and dots only4 ,they will be the most interesting4 ,these messages will be carefully distinguished from massages4 ,they will be quite different4 ,they will give the most astounding news4 ,my principal pupil1 ,professor ,oliver ,nodge1 just marconied me the latest ,elysiogram1 which he was fortunate enough to receive to-day3 ',rather hot day to-night4--,feel depressed as if ,i had exchanged ideas with ,mr ,h4,c4--#d1 #j1--36--,place here somewhat out of date4--,do send me ,times more regularly4--,can now see that flannels do not conduce to health4--,never forget to wind up your watch6--,death is a mere incident in ,life4--,if you can avoid it1 don't die6--,it is a failure4--#cd1 #ef1 #gh1 #ij1 #ab4444' ,when ,diogenes had finished reading the ,elysiogram of his pupil1 even ,hephstus 7,vulcan71 otherwise so grave1 broke out in a tremendous laughter which made one of the tiers of the ,coliseum shake like an elm-tree in a gale4 ,i am delighted to see1 continued ,diogenes1 that my pupils contribute to your amusement4 ,it is indeed beyond a doubt that without them this world would be considerably staler and duller than it is4 ,you may imagine that my pupils will not rest contented with a daily column in a newspaper4 ,they will found ,elysiogram papers of their own2 found ,elysiogram ,churches2 build up ,elysiogram congregations2 deliver ,elysiogram sermons2 in short1 they will establish ,the ,new ,religion of--,elysionism4 ,in this marvellous ,religion the believer is given all the shivers1 cardiac vibrations1 nervous shocks and prostrate contritions1 pleasantly alternated with ecstatic exuberance1 that he may wish for4 ,in that respect it is far superior to any music hall4 ,these funny clergymen rage against the music halls4 ,but why have they abolished all public1 gay1 and variegated ,church festivals1 such as the ,middle ,ages had introduced in plenty8 ,the public do want to have their shocks and shivers4 ,if the ,church does not provide some of them1 music halls will4 ,we ,hellenes did everything to render ,religion attractive and enjoyable4 ,our religious processions and public festivals were gorgeous with colours1 fun1 art1 music1 and touching piety4 ,how could any ,hellene have felt the need of a modern music hall1 this the last degradation of the human intellect1 worse than the ,roman gladiatorial games1 worse than the ,spanish bull-fights1 worse than the worst of ,french novels4 ,if1 therefore1 the clergy will take our ,new ,religion into the least consideration1 they will forthwith see the immense advantages thereof4 ,in ,elysionism the most languorously delicate of the elegant ladies will at last find what she has all this time been hankering for4 ,in the morning when she gets up between twelve and two o'clock1 she will with religious shivers reach after the ,elysiogram press4 ,with burning eye she will run over the columns in search of the latest ,elysiogram4 ,just think of her excitement on finding1 in one paragraph or another1 some indiscretion of one of her departed friends1 male or female1 regarding her4 ,just imagine how she will devoutly run to the editor of the paper1 or to the ,elysiop1 that is1 the chief bishop of the ,new ,religion1 offering him #ajj1 #bjj1 nay #ejj for the 'tranquillity' of the poor soul in ,elysium from whom came that disquieting par4 ,the ,elysiop will promise to do his best and will--enter the #ejj pour les frais de l'glise4 ,what a delightfully exciting experience to have6 ,later on in the day1 the same lady will enjoy the anxiety of a lady friend of hers who is waiting for an ,elysiogram from her husband who disappeared a few months before without sending his faithful wife the correct official statement of his departure4 ,what exquisite moments of nervous expectation to pass6 ,for a few further bank-notes pour les frais de l'glise1 the liberating ,elysiogram appears4 ,imagine the interest with which sermons delivered by the ,elysiop1 ,elysiarch1 or the ,elyseacon1 will be attended by the beau monde4 ,the preacher after the customary introduction will pull from his pocket the latest ,elysiograms1 which are notoriously frequent on ,saturdays4 ,artistically pausing before he begins reading them out1 he will fill all these vibrants with the most dainty nervous wrenchings and twistings4 ,then slowly he will report to them the latest news from ,elysium and ,hades4 ,with that justice so characteristic of the ,powers of the ,other ,world1 the pleasant news1 full of consolation and comfort1 is addressed to such members as have proved zealous in deed and alms to the ,church4 ,on the other hand1 members whose zeal left much to be desired1 are treated to news that makes both kinds of their hair stand on end4 ,where is the music hall or even the theatre that will be in a position to vie with such a ,church in intense attractiveness8 ,once the classes as well as the masses are drawn to it1 some ,oxford or ,liverpool professor will speedily come forward with the new dogmatics of ,elysionism2 and in less than three years ,prof4 ,harnack of ,berlin will write its history of dogmatics1 and publish maps about its geographical distribution4 ,amongst the innumerable blessings of this ,religion there is one the value of which cannot be exaggerated1 let alone properly estimated4 ,i mean1 of course1 its vast resources for healing all diseases4 ,it is patent that once we stand in continuous and direct communication with ,elysium1 we can easily inquire from our departed ones what we ought to do in case of illness4 ,since a given individual in ,elysium who died of1 say1 hay-fever has traversed all its stages1 and is naturally more conversant with it than any terrestrial doctor can ever be1 knowing thereof not only the stages passing on earth but also those going on beyond the ,rainbow2 he is in the best of positions to advise a patient what to do and what not to do4 ,especially1 when one takes into consideration that according to the most authentic ,elysiograms1 written by ,prof4 ,nodge's own ,elysio-typer1 all departed people agree that hay-fever1 appendicitis1 pneumonia1 etc41 are only the noms de plume of ,dr ,smith1 ,dr ,jones1 ,dr ,jenkinson1 and so on4 ,we shall1 accordingly1 in any case of illness1 simply communicate the symptoms to ,elysium and ask for detailed instructions from such of the ,elysians as have died of that disease4 ,in that way we are sure to heal all diseases much more rapidly than even ,christian ,science or ,mahometan ,chemistry could do4 ,we shall sell ,elysio-pills1 with which no ,beecham's ,pill will be able to compete2 and using the indications we shall receive from over the ,acheron1 we shall have dpts of ,elysian ,waters triumphing over ,hunyady ,jnos1 ,carlsbad ,sprudel1 ,contrexville1 or ,aix-les-,bains4 ,in fact1 since the ,kaiser is well known to be in close relations to the ,upper ,world1 and an intimate friend of ,providence1 we shall arrange through him an ,elysian ,bath1 somewhere near ,nauheim4 ,then our ,religion will be complete4 ,it will have its unique ,press1 its hierarchy1 its liturgy1 sermons1 pills1 waters1 and watering-places1 let alone its ,pleasant ,sunday ,afternoons1 moral gymnasiums1 self-denial weeks1 and special wireless costumes4 ,the extant religions will all disappear2 religious unity will reign over the whole world1 and if you1 ,o ,zeus1 will consent to it1 ,i shall personally preside at my headquarters in ,westbourne ,park ,chapel4 ,the speech of ,diogenes was received with hearty applause1 and even stern ,demosthenes congratulated him on his idea of offering a really new shake-up to the tired nerves of the poor human tremolos of ,mayfair and the ,east ,end4 ,several of the gods volunteered to send messages for the ,elysian ,times1 and ,csar proposed that he and ,alexander the ,great1 ,pericles1 and other heroes send messages counterdicting the extant ,greek and ,roman histories of their exploits1 in order to enjoy the huge fun arising from the confusion amongst scholars4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the hilarity of the ,assembly had reached its maximum1 ,zeus addressed them as follows3 ,before1 ,o ,friends1 we part from here repairing to ,olympus1 and eventually to ,japan and ,china1 ,i propose that ,plato give us his serious impression of what turn the next religious phase of the little ones will take4 ,i entitle him even to say1 with due moderation1 what turn it shall take4 ,plato1 rising from his seat near ,socrates and ,aristotle1 first bowed to ,zeus1 and then to ,apollo whom he requested to allow his priests to intone the sacred hymn of ,delphi4 ,that hymn1 ,plato said1 had been handed down from hoary antiquity1 and was the song best fitted to fill the hearts of men with the sentiment of religion2 the ,roman ,church1 he added1 still retained it4 ,apollo nodded consent1 and forthwith the archons of ,delphi1 aided by the great choir of the ,parthenon1 filled the still night with mighty harmonies4 ,the simple tunes rose into the heights like columns upon which the singers finally laid down capitals1 architraves and pediments of serene melodies1 until all ,rome and the surrounding plains and valleys seemed changed into one vast musical temple1 while the echo of the ,albanian ,mountains handed the rhythms and cadences on to stern ,soracte and the ,apennines4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i will not undertake1 ,plato said1 to determine what direction the new ,religion of the little ones will take4 ,that direction depends upon their whole life in peace and war1 which is1 and will remain1 under your exclusive control1 ,o ,zeus4 ,but if ,i am to outline what shape and function their ,religion is likely to take in the near future1 ,i feel more confident of acquitting myself creditably4 ,this applies more particularly to the negative part of my task4 ,i mean1 it is quite possible to criticise the various schemes of new ,religions proposed by a number of thinkers1 and to say why these schemes will not succeed4 ,the most numerous schemes of this description have been propounded by men of otherwise great abilities and accomplishments1 such as ,auguste ,comte1 and his followers in ,england and elsewhere4 ,they have tried to establish rational ,religions1 or such in which ,dionysus has no share4 ,this is a vain attempt4 ,diogenes showed with great justice how all such attempts are doomed to failure4 ,the more rational knowledge spreads both in bulk and in number of disciples1 the more the little ones will need a ,dionysiac religion4 ,if the ,state or other ruling classes will not provide it properly1 eccentrics and faddists will do so improperly4 ,if the true enthusiasm for ,art could really enter the hearts of the masses1 then1 and then alone1 ,religion need not be ,dionysiac4 ,however1 this is impossible in nations consisting each of many millions of people4 ,this is the greatness of your work1 ,o ,nietzsche4 ,in your ,zarathustra you worship ,apollo with piety1 but you entreat ,dionysus too to enter the temple4 ,however1 you restrict your cult to the few1 and for this reason you cannot succeed to a greater extent than did ,pythagoras1 who likewise closed the gates of his sanctuary to the ,many4 ,the question in ,europe is how to let the ,many feel the ,light of ,apollo and the ,might of ,dionysus4 ,unless this is done1 nothing is done4 ,can ,protestantism do that8 ,calvin is fast aging1 and his hair is quite white4 ,can ,roman ,catholicism do it8 ,at these words of ,plato the first matutinal choir came wafted from the ,vatican4 ,plato made a pause4 ,the ,vestal ,virgins bowed their heads4 ,on ,csar's expressive face there appeared a strange smile1 and leaning over to ,cicero1 he whispered something into the ear of the great orator-statesman4 ,zeus remained immobile4 99 99 99 99 99 ,plato resumed thus3 ,the ,romans of our time were to us ,hellenes as ,protestantism is to ,catholicism4 ,will the ,rome of this day be absorbed by the ,protestants of the ,north as we were absorbed by ancient ,rome8 ,you used to say1 ,o ,machiavelli1 that this world belongs to the cold hearts4 ,that is probably quite true with regard to material things4 ,but is it true with regard to spiritual ones8 ,the ,north of ,europe is cold2 the ,south is warm4 ,the former is romantic at its best1 and eccentric at its worst2 while the ,south is classic at its best1 and irreverential at its worst4 ,the ,north therefore will worship ,apollo only in a haze1 and ,dionysus in distorted forms2 while the ,south willingly bows to ,apollo full of heavenly light1 and accepts ,dionysus only by means of a strict1 hierarchical organisation4 ,can any ,bach write one 'well-tempered' fugue on both ,north and ,south8 ,can they in future be united in one belief8 ,we have had so far two kinds of ,religion only4 ,one1 those of small ,states1 such as we had in ,greece or ,italy2 the other1 universal ,religions1 such as the ,religion of ,jesus1 based on humans as mere abstracts1 as mere equal atoms2 ,religions that applied to any person irrespective of ,state1 race1 class1 or occupation4 ,there are1 however1 now no small ,states such as we used to found1 nor is all ,european humanity one vast conglomeration of atomic men4 ,there are now new entities3 nations4 ,will each of them develop her own ,religion8 ,most likely1 ,i think4 ,it is with ,religions as with ,law and ,language3 each nation1 the more high-strung it becomes1 the more it differentiates its ,law and its ,language4 ,in the ,middle ,ages1 up to the twelfth century1 there were not fifty languages in ,europe4 ,there are now far over a thousand4 ,each nation wants its own way of worshipping and representing ,apollo and ,dionysus4 ,in countries full of musical enthusiasm the religious rle of ,dionysus is different from what it is in countries where music is not an organ of the national soul4 ,should ,europe ever be levelled down to one ,united ,states of ,europe 7--at these words one could see ,zeus smile with benignant sarcasm--7 then there will arise new ,religions in nearly every county of every country4 ,in ,england we see the process clearly developing4 ,the official ,church is neither quite ,apollo nor quite ,dionysus2 it is a product grown somewhere between ,rome and ,geneva1 say at ,leghorn4 ,the unofficial ,churches accept ,dionysus only as enthusiasm for unenthusiastic matters1 such as ,puritanism2 while ,apollo with them is a ,sunday school teacher4 ,and this cannot be otherwise4 ,an ,imperialist nation cannot have an ,imperialist ,religion too1 otherwise the heads of that ,religion would run the ,empire4 ,the ,english1 in the interest of their ,empire1 disintegrated their ancient ,religion4 ,in other words1 they were bound to obscure ,apollo and to degrade ,dionysus by eccentricities4 ,take the ,unitarians4 ,unable to find place for ,dionysus in their over-rationalised ,religion1 they rush into moral eccentricities1 such as a wholesale condemnation of war1 a sickly philanthropy that yet seldom leaves the precincts of words1 and other morbid habits4 ,in ,england1 ,religion cannot be allowed its full-fledged growth4 ,should the ,english lose their ,empire and1 which is doubtful1 yet survive as a small island-state1 they will forthwith change their ,religions1 and the first of these to be dropped will be ,anglicanism2 while ,methodism1 in one of its extremer forms1 is the most likely to replace all the others1 should ,catholicism not supplant it4 ,the only new ,christian ,religion likely to arise in the ,british ,empire is one in ,india1 which will stand to ,british ,christianity as the ,greek ,church stands to the ,roman4 ,i wonder why one or another of the ,british missionaries has not developed it long ago4 ,in ,great ,britain herself a powerful new ,religion cannot be devised as yet4 ,it is quite different on the ,continent2 and it is devoutly to be hoped that ,france will shake off her torpor and pour new religious enthusiasm into the soul of her nation4 ,it is also to be hoped that the ,japanese will at last adopt a ,religion fitting their new status as a great nation4 ,they will never accept ,protestantism4 ,they may accept some new form of ,romanism1 in that the great distance of ,rome from ,tokio guarantees them from too much interference1 and because their next objective1 the thousands of islands called the ,philippines1 have long been converted to ,romanism4 ,i have1 in my travels on earth1 frequently been asked whether our own beautiful ,religion could not be revived again4 ,to this the answer can hardly be doubtful4 ,our ,religion was so intimately connected with our peculiar polity that unless such polities should be revived1 our ,religion cannot be reintroduced into the life of nations4 ,in my ,republic ,i have anticipated most of the political communities that have arisen after my death2 and the ,roman ,church has fully confirmed my prediction1 that the polity in which philosophers will be kings will be the most abiding of all4 ,the restrictions which ,i placed on the various classes of my ideal ,republic have not been literally observed by the ,roman ,church2 she has laid upon them other restrictions4 ,but then as now ,i say1 that the greater the ,ideal1 the heavier price we have to pay for it4 ,the little ones1 listening to arm-chair experts1 multi-millionaires and faddists1 indulge in the childish belief that they will be able to bring ,elysium down into their ,assemblies1 ,market-places1 and their ,social ,life1 by removing all severe conflicts1 all cruelty1 all relentless punishments1 and similar necessities which are only the inevitable price paid for some great good4 ,they think they will make the world more humane1 by giving up any attempt at weeding out all the bad herbs among the human grass4 ,they will never do it4 ,if they want to have a ,religion better than the one they have1 they will have to pay an exceedingly heavy price for it4 ,first is ,calvary1 and then comes the ,resurrection4 ,religion is an ,ideal1 and hence very costly4 ,if ever the general brotherhood of men should be realised1 just for one year1 the sacrifices to be paid for such a sublime ideal would be so immense that people would at once relapse into the other extreme4 ,nothing wiser ever fell from your lips1 ,o ,goethe1 than your saying that 'nothing is more hard to endure than a series of three beautiful days4' ,we ,greeks know it4 ,we realised many an ideal2 more than has been realised by any other people4 ,accordingly1 we did not last very long4 ,do not covet the stars6 ,be satisfied with a little cottage in the midst of a small garden4 ,but you were right1 ,o ,spinoza1 that the whole essence of ,man is concupiscence4 ,he will desire and aspire after an endless array of things1 all of which he wants to have for nothing4 ,it is in vain that we tell him that there is no more expensive shop than that where gratification of desires is sold4 ,in vain have all the ,religions essayed to inculcate the lesson of resignation1 one by threatening dire punishments on earth1 the other by menacing eternal pains in yonder world4 ,resignation is the last thing a human thinks of4 ,he thinks he is so clever1 so intelligent1 so inventive and especially so 'progressive1' that he will bend ,ideals to his will1 as he has done with a few of the physical forces of ,nature4 ,he does not know that while other goods require only the abnegation of one or a few individuals1 ,ideals exact the privation of multitudes4 ,could we free ,greeks have been what we were1 had we not stood on the bodies of degraded slaves who relieved us of the drudgery of life8 ,one cannot be free and a slave at the same time4 ,in my deep conviction of the heavy sacrifices demanded for ,ideals1 ,i frequently think that we ,greeks1 and more particularly myself1 who introduced this thirst for ,ideals into the world1 have thereby done ,europe more harm than good4 ,how many a time has the fate of ,prometheus been re-enacted in millions of ideal-smitten ,europeans6 ,there he is1 bound to a rock1 while an eagle eats his liver1 because he wanted to bring down ,olympus to earth4 ,the ,religion that will teach man serene resignation2 that will imbue him with the sense of the magnitude of ,ideals2 that will make him feel that ,ideals are not for man1 but for gods2 that ,religion will save him4 ,none other4 ,the priests of that ,religion must be the first to exemplify that ,resignation to the full4 ,they must not preach ,resignation while themselves dressed in purple and clothed in the amplest rights of ,precedence1 ,authority1 and ,splendour4 ,will there ever be such priests8 ,i doubt it4 ,what priests want and what they have always wanted1 is nothing but authority4 ,they have founded and brought to its most consummate expression the science of authority-seeking4 ,they know how to impress people4 ,i do not hope that they will ever give up such a profitable accomplishment2 and consequently no ,religion of the future will have a remarkable success unless it enables its founders to invest many persons with great authority4 ,the scant authority it gives to its incumbents is the chief weakness of ,protestantism as compared with ,roman ,catholicism4 ,this world is ruled by ,authority2 and so far1 the other world too has been governed by the same means4 ,and so at the end1 as well as at the outset of our reflections on ,life we start and come back to the same eternal truth1 that practical life wants not truth as such1 but only effectology4 ,truth proper1 and independent of any practical effects1 has its place only at the foot of ,your ,mighty ,throne in ,olympus1 ,o ,zeus4 ,we ,hellenes having been on a plane altogether higher than is that of the little ones1 we dared to introduce some truths proper into our life4 ,we sincerely called a spade a spade4 ,we knew that some women and men must suffer1 in order that others may fully develop their humanity2 and so we instituted slavery1 scorning1 as we did1 the half-measures of quarter1 third1 or three quarters liberty in men or women4 ,we openly talked of the ',envy of the gods1' which is one of the deepest truths of life4 ,and thus in many a custom1 law1 or measure of ours we had the courage to enshrine truth proper in the prose-frame of ordinary life4 ,this emboldened me to think that there might one day be a ,state1 a ,republic1 wholly built on eternal truths4 ,and so ,i wrote my book hoping it would serve as a beacon-fire for all times and all humans4 ,at present ,i know better4 ,what people want1 in ,religion or ,science1 is effectological truth1 and not truth proper4 ,my book1 as the rest of my work1 has procured me a place in ,olympus1 but has not enabled me to conquer a single town of the nether-world4 ,i too have learnt to resign myself4 ,truth1 like ,beauty1 and ,goodness1 is not meant for the little ones4 ,and yet they will in all times go on their pilgrimage to our shrines2 through all ages they will worship ,athens and mighty ,rome as the true home of humanity2 as the age and the men who had the divine courage of truthfulness1 and the saving grace of ,beauty4 ,zeus and ,juno rose from their chryselephantine seats4 ,the shades of the night became lighter1 and at a sign from ,mercury1 the whole divine ,assembly left their places and moved through the air towards ,olympus4 ,,the ,,end ,a ,catalogue of the ,publications of ,t4 ,werner ,laurie4 ,,abbeys ,,of ,,great ,,britain1 ,the 7,h4 ,clairborne ,dixon and ,e4 ,ramsden74 #fs4 net4 7,cathedral ,series47 ,,abbeys ,,of ,,england1 ,the 7,elsie ,m4 ,lang74 ,leather1 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 7,leather ,booklets47 ,,adam 7,h4,l471 ,the ,story of ,crime4 ,fully ,illustrated4 ,demy #hvo4 #ajs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,addison 7,,julia71 ,classic ,myths in ,art4 ,illustrated with #dj plate reproductions from famous painters4 ,crown #hvo1 cloth gilt1 #fs4 net4 ,,adventures ,,of ,,an ,,empress 7,helene ,vacaresco74 #fs4 ,,aflalo 7,f4,g471 ,sunshine and ,sport in ,florida and the ,west ,indies4 #fj ,illustrations4 ,demy #hvo1 #afs4 net4 ,,alien1 ,the 7,helene ,vacaresco74 #fs4 ,,anthony 7,e47 7,cut ,cavendish71 ,the ,complete ,bridge ,player1 ,with a ,chapter on ,misery ,bridge4 7,vol4 ,i41 ,library of ,sports47 #cbj pages4 ,crown #hvo1 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,armour 7,j4 ,,ogden71 ,the ,packers and the ,people4 ,eight ,illustrations4 #chj ,pages4 ,crown #hvo1 #fs4 net4 ,,arncliffe ,,puzzle1 ,the 7,gordon ,holmes74 #fs4 ,,art ,,in ,,the ,,dumps 7,eugene ,merrill74 #as4 net4 ,,artist',s ,,life1 ,the 7,john ,oliver ,hobbes74 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,beauty ,,shop1 ,the 7,daniel ,woodroffe74 #fs4 ,,becke 7,l471 ,notes from ,my ,south ,sea ,log4 ,crown #hvo1 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,forests4 ,demy #hvo1 #afs4 net4 ,,building ,,of ,a ,,book1 ,the 7,f4,h4 ,hitchcock74 #fs4 net4 ,,bullock 7,shan ,f471 ,the ,cubs4 ,a ,novel4 ,crown #hvo1 #fs42 ,prize ,edition1 #cs4 #f;d4 ,,bullock 7,shan ,f471 ,robert ,thorne3 ,the ,story of a ,london ,clerk4 ,a ,novel4 ,crown #hvo1 #fs4 ,,bumpus 7,t4,f471 ,the ,cathedrals of ,england and ,wales4 7,the ,cathedral ,series1 ,vols4 ,,iii41 ,,iv41 ,v474 ,with many plates and minor decorations1 and specially designed heads and tailpieces to each chapter4 ,octavo1 decorative cover1 cloth gilt1 #fs4 net each2 in leather1 #ajs4 #f;d4 net per vol4 ,,bumpus 7,t4,f471 ,the ,cathedrals and ,churches of ,northern ,italy4 ,with #hj plates1 nine of them in colour1 and a coloured frontispiece by ,f4,l4 ,griggs1 #i #f-a_/b4 #afs4 net4 ,,bumpus 7,t4,f471 ,the ,cathedrals of ,northern ,germany and the ,rhine4 7,the ,cathedral ,series1 ,vol4 ,,vi474 ,with many plates and minor decorations4 #hvo1 cloth gilt1 #fs4 net2 leather1 #ajs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,bumpus 7,t4,f471 ,old ,london ,churches4 ,in #b vols4 7,uniform with the ,cathedral ,series47 ,many illustrations4 ,crown #hvo1 cloth gilt1 #fs4 net each4 ,,burlesque ,,napoleon1 ,the 7,philip ,w4 ,sergeant74 #ajs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,burrows 7,g4,t471 ,some ,old ,inns of ,england4 7,the ,leather ,booklets1 ,vol4 ,,ii47 #bd illustrations4 #e #c1 stamped leather1 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,butler 7,w4,m471 ,the ,golfers' ,guide4 ,with an ,introduction by ,dr4 ,macnamara4 7,vol4 ,,iii41 ,library of ,sports47 ,crown #hvo41 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,camp ,,fires ,,in ,,the ,,canadian ,,rockies 7,w4,t4 ,hornaday71 #afs4 net4 ,,captains ,,and ,,the ,,kings1 ,the 7,henry ,haynie74 #fs4 net4 ,,carrel 7,frederic71 ,the ,adventures of ,john ,johns4 ,a ,novel4 ,crown #hvo1 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 ,,castles ,,of ,,england1 ,the 7,e4,b4 ,d',auvergne74 ,leather1 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 7,leather ,booklets47 ,,cathedral ,,guide1 ,the ,pocket 7,w4,j4 ,roberts74 ,leather4 #bs4 #f;d4 net4 7,leather ,booklets47 ,,cathedral ,,series1 ,the4 ,crown 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