Chapter XI: Postscript

So at the end we are compelled to confess an essential ignorance. To-day’s “human comedy” still remains unwritten. Those who have essayed it are always unconsciously or deliberately foreshortening or distorting: exhibiting excess of darkness or sunshine. We know little of the forces fermenting in that strange laboratory which is the birthplace of the coming time. We are uncertain whether civilisation is about to blossom into flower, or wither in tangle of dead leaves and faded gold. We can find no answer to the inquiry, whether we are about to plunge into a new period of tumult and upheaval, whether we are destined to an indefinite prolongation of the present half-lights and shadows, whether, as we sometimes try to anticipate, a door is to be suddenly opened, revealing unimaginable glories.

In face of such uncertainty, the verdict is often one of criticism and despair. “The wisest man has warned us”--so runs a mournful verdict--“not to expect the world ever to improve so much that the better part of mankind will be in the majority. No wise man ever undertakes to correct the disorders of the public estate.” “He who cannot endure the madness of the public, but goeth about to think he can cure it, is himself no less mad than the rest.”

Such a verdict, however, pays little heed to the effort of those whose unregarded labour, now in patient adherence to duty, now in “something more heroical than this age affecteth,” has bought the good things which are the common heritage of to-day: a widespread comfort, opportunities for happiness and content, freedom which is always but hardly won and but hardly maintained.

Optimism and pessimism, in face of any civilisation in a changing world, are equally untrue, equally futile. All human societies mingle selfishness and sacrifice, exultation and weariness, laughter and tears. No one age is especially wicked, especially tired, especially noble. All ages are wicked, tired, noble. Progress is always impossible and always proceeding. Preservation is always hazardous and always attained. Every class is unfit to govern; and the government of the world continues. Austerities, simplicities, and a common danger breed virtues and devotions which are the parents of prosperity. Prosperity breeds arrogance, extravagance, and class hatreds. Opulence and pride in their turn breed national disasters. And these disasters engender the austerities and simplicities which start the cycle again anew.

To accept all and to reject all are in this case equally desperate courses. To turn aside in despair, to hold aloof in disdain, to proclaim from the heart of comfort an easy approval, are policies traitorous to the public good.

A king of France--so runs the medieval legend--when travelling in Catalonia, discovered an ancient man engaged unremittingly in the planting of date-kernels. “Why?” he asked, “do you sow the seeds of a tree of such tardy growth, seeing that the dates will not ripen till a hundred years be passed?” “Am I not then eating,” was the answer, “the fruit of trees planted by my forefathers, who took thought for those who were to come? And shall not I do like unto them?”[31]

It may be that the men “who took thought for those who were to come” will be found upon the winning side.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] F. M. Hueffer in “The Spirit of the People,” a clever and suggestive analysis of Middle Class England.

[2] _The Island Pharisees. J. Galsworthy._

[3] _At the Works. Lady Bell._

[4] _A Poor Man’s House. Stephen Reynolds._

[5] _The Town Child. R. A. Bray._

[6] _Towards Social Reform. Canon and Mrs. Barrett._

[7] _New Worlds for Old. H. G. Wells._

[8] _Socialism. R. C. Ensor._

[9] _Report of H.M. Factory Inspectors, 1907._

[10] _Report of the Committee on Truck, 1909._

[11] _Kipps. By H. G. Wells._

[12] _Report of Parliamentary Committee on Home Work, 1908._ To-day in Parliament a “Trades’ Boards Bill” seems at last to offer a way towards remedy.

[13] _C. L. Marson in The “Commonwealth._”

[14] _The Ruin of Rural England._

[15] _D. C. Pedder. Where Men Decay._

[16] _Before the Great Pillage. Dr. Jessop._

[17] _England a Nation._

[18] Tolstoy, _Fortnightly Review_, February 1909.

[19] _Modernism and Romance. By R. A. Scott James._ The whole book forms a very interesting study of the possibilities of the survival of “Romance” in the modern world.

[20] _Modernism and Romance._

[21] In a volume of essays, _In Peril of Change_.

[22] _Tono-Bungay. By H. G. Wells._

[23] _John Bull’s Other Island. G. Bernard Shaw._

[24] _A Century of Meditations. Thomas Treherne._

[25] See _The Story of My Heart_. _By Richard Jefferies._

[26] _England a Nation._

[27] _Life and Labour of the People. Religious Influences._

[28] _Christianity and the Working Classes_, edited by George Haw.

[29] _The War in the Air. By H. G. Wells._

[30] In these summaries and quotations I have used the excellent translation of Mr. A. W. Evans’s _Penguin Island_ (John Lane).

[31] _Gentlemen Errant. Mrs. Cust._

INDEX

Airships, 217

American wealth, 30;
athletics, 135;
diseased activity, 136;
begging in, 182, 183

Aristocracy, intellectual failure of, 28

Arnold, Matthew, quotation from, 6, 14, 25, 219, 265

Baby, crying, 187

Bagehot, 30, 284

“Bankruptcy of Science,” 213

Barnett, Canon, 141, 274

Bell, Lady, _At the Works_, 106, 107, 109

Belloc, 19, 240

Birmingham, Bishop of, 88

Blake, 244

Bonfield, Miss, 168

“Boodler” not disapproved, 153

Booth, Charles, on religion in London, 268

Bray, Reginald, “The Town Child,” 136, 139

Butler, 265

Butler, Samuel, 283

Canyon, Arizona, 286

Carlyle, quotation from, 6, 22, 47, 99, 219, 276

“Castle Haven,” 32

Châteaubriand, 222

Chesterton, G. K., 241

Child Labour, effect of, 162

_Clarion_ and _Clarionette_, 143, 154

“Conquerors, the,” 56

Corruption, Civic, 153

Crooks, Mr. Will, 144, 145, 146, 147

Crowd, the, 118, 119, 293;
strong man’s contempt for, 123;
in America, 123

“Cup Tie” and dying workman, 134

Davies, W. H., 180, 181, 182, 183

Democracy, 136, 141

Dill, Dr., 301

Disease, victory over, 224

Dolling, 268

Electioneering, the new, 128

Ensor, Mr., 150, 179, 207, 263

Family, limitation of, 86, 87, 103;
budgets, 101;
variations in, 102;
working class and middle class contrasted, 139;
“F. sanctity” rashly used in argument, 140

Flowers, workmen’s ignorance of, 263

Flying, developments of, 217, 290

Football crowds, 131

France, Anatole (Ile des Penguins), 294-295, 300;
M. Bergeret, 302

Froissart, 193

Galsworthy, _The Island Pharisees_, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55

Gladstone, 21

Grayson, Mr., M.P., 143

Half-Timers, 162

Hardy, Thomas, 232

Henderson, Mr., M.P., 143

Henley, W. E., quotation from, 49

Horton, Dr., on religion, 271

Housing of the Poor, 99, 100

Hueffer, F. M., Spirit of the People, 14, 35, 270

Infantile death-rate, 161

Jefferies, Richard, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253

Jowett, Mr., M.P., 143

Juvenal, 61

Kennedy, Bart, 178, 180

Kipling, quotation from, 287

_Kipps_, 170, 171, 286

Lamb, Charles, 131

Land, love of, 193

Life Worship, 249, 251

Living-in, 161, 165;
moral effect of, 167;
employers on, 166

Loane, Miss, 112, 115

London County Council, Hôtel de Ville, 23;
elections, 69

_Lord of Latimer Street_, 116

Lowes, Dickinson, 283

Lyons, Neil, 184

Mallock, 41

Medieval craftsmen country people, English, 200

Meredith, quotation from, 6

Morris, quotation from, 6;
Socialism of, 257, 258

Newton’s law of motion, 284

Noise of the machines, awful when it stops, 137

Papacy, Sidney Smith on, 265

Peckham election, 126

Plutocracy, the, 40, 41

“Populace,” 15

Press, the Sunday, 3

Prévost, M. Marcel, 56, 57, 58, 59

Rescue Home, youth of inmates, 160

Religion, middle classes and, 75;
indifference to, 267;
Booth on, 269;
drink and, 271;
Ward, 272;
class feeling and, 272

Renan, 118

Reynolds, Stephen, _A Poor Man’s House_, 113-116

Rights of way, only in England, 201

“_Robert Thorne_,” 78

Roman building, 24;
vice but splendour, 46

Ruskin, quotation from, 6, 111

Sailor at midnight, 187

Scott, James, R.A., 231

“Season, the,” 44

Security, conviction of, 8, 280, 282, 288

Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 237, 238, 239

Shop assistants, 164

Sidgwick, Henry, 276

Sinclair, Upton, 30, 31, 32

Small holdings, 194

Smith, Sidney, on Papacy, 265

Snowden, Mr., 142

Socialism, aristocracy under, 64;
among the middle classes, 34;
among the working classes, 148, 149

Southey on the city, 136

Standard of living, alteration in, 11, 21, 39

Stevenson, R. L., 245

Strike, railway, 16

Suffragettes, 84, 119, 122, 127

Super-wealth, 20, 26

“Surrey Labourer,” 196

Sweating, instances of, 160, 161, 174;
character of workers, 173

Taine, 270

Tavannes, 48

Teachers, elementary, 83

Ties of family, where strongest, 139

Tolstoy, 213

Treherne, Thomas, 243, 248, 250

Tramps, 178

Tyranny in villages, 193, 205, 206

Victorian Age, 5

Village, decaying life of, 12, 65, 190, 191, 192, 193

Viviani, M., quotation from, 155

Wells, H. G., quotation from New Worlds for Old, 149;
war in the air, 220, 290;
Tono-Bungay, 237;
Utopia, 282

Wordsworth on the City, 136

Workhouse, labourer’s dislike of, 197

_Printed by_
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED,
_Edinburgh_

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.