Chapter IV: Part 4

The next thing to be attended to is your demeanour towards a young wife. The first frown that she receives from you is a dagger to her heart. Let nothing put you out of humour with her.

Every husband who spends his leisure time in company other than that of his wife and family tells her and them that he takes more delight in other company than in theirs. Resolve from the very first never to spend an hour from home unless business or some necessary and rational purpose demand it. If you are called away your wife ought to be fully apprised of the probable duration of the absence and of the time of return. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day, how can a just man think anything a trifle that affects her happiness?

Though these considerations may demand from us the kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful deportment at her hands. A husband under command is the most contemptible of God's creatures. Am I recommending tyranny? Am I recommending disregard of the wife's opinions and wishes? By no means. But the very nature of things prescribes that there must be a head of every house, and an undivided authority. The wife ought to be heard, and patiently heard; she ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; but if she remain opposed to the husband's opinion, his will must be obeyed.

I now come to that great bane of families--jealousy. One thing every husband can do in the way of prevention, and that is to give no ground for it. Few characters are more despicable than that of a jealous-headed husband, and that, not because he has grounds, but because he has not grounds.

If to be happy in the married state requires these precautions, you may ask: Is it not better to remain single? The cares and troubles of the married life are many, but are those of the single life few? Without wives men are poor, helpless mortals.

As to the expense, I firmly believe that a farmer married at twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would be able to save more money during these years than a bachelor of the same age would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of time. The bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases rely. To me, no being in this world appears so wretched as he.

_V.--To a Father_

It is yourself that you see in your children. They are the great and unspeakable delight of your youth, the pride of your prime of life, and the props of your old age. From the very beginning ensure in them, if possible, an ardent love for their mother. Your first duty towards them is resolutely to prevent their drawing the means of life from any breast but hers. That is their own; it is their birthright.

The man who is to gain a living by his labour must be drawn away from home; but this will not, if he be made of good stuff, prevent him from doing his share of the duty due to his children. There ought to be no toils, no watchings, no breakings of rest, imposed by this duty, of which he ought not to perform his full share, and that, too, without grudging. The working man, in whatever line, and whether in town or country, who spends his day of rest away from his wife and children is not worthy of the name of father.

The first thing in the rearing of children who have passed from the baby state is, as to the body, plenty of good food; and, as to the mind, constant good example in the parents. There is no other reason for the people in the American states being generally so much taller and stronger than the people in England are, but that, from their birth, they have an abundance of good food; not only of food, but of rich food. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unimportant matter, for a tall man is worth more than a short man. Good food, and plenty of it, is not more necessary to the forming of a stout and able body than to the forming of an active and enterprising spirit. Children should eat often, and as much as they like at a time. They will never take, of plain food, more than it is good for them to take.

The next thing after good and plentiful and plain food is good air. Besides sweet air, children want exercise. Even when they are babies in arms they want tossing and pulling about, and talking and singing to. They will, when they begin, take, if you let them alone, just as much exercise as nature bids them, and no more.

I am of opinion that it is injurious to the mind to press book-learning upon a child at an early age. I must impress my opinion upon every father that his children's happiness ought to be his first object; that book-learning, if it tend to militate against this, ought to be disregarded. A man may read books for ever and be an ignorant creature at last, and even the more ignorant for his reading.

And with regard to young women, everlasting book-reading is absolutely a vice. When they once get into the habit they neglect all other matters, and, in some cases, even their very dress. Attending to the affairs of the house--to the washing, the baking, the brewing, the cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry and the garden, these are their proper occupations.

_VI.--To the Citizen_

Having now given my advice to the youth, the man, the lover, the husband, and the father, I shall tender it to the citizen. To act well our part as citizens we ought clearly to understand what our rights are; for on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights going before duties, as value received goes before payments. The great right of all is the right of taking a part in the making of the laws by which we are governed.

It is the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty imposed by the law of nature as well as by that of civil society. Yet how are you to maintain that this is the duty of every man if you deny to some men the enjoyment of a share in making the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as the rich man; like the latter, he has parents, wife, and children; a bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich man; yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of rights! Why are the poor to risk their lives? To uphold the laws and to protect property--property of which they are said to possess none? What! compel men to come forth and risk their lives for the protection of property, and then in the same breath tell them that they are not allowed to share in the making of the laws, because, and only because, they have no property!

Here, young man of sense and of spirit, here is the point on which you are to take your stand. There are always men enough to plead the cause of the rich, and to echo the woes of the fallen great; but be it your part to show compassion for those who labour, and to maintain their rights.

If the right to have a share in making the laws were merely a feather, if it were a fanciful thing, if it were only a speculative theory, if it were but an abstract principle, it might be considered as of little importance. But it is none of these; it is a practical matter. Who lets another man put his hand into his purse when he pleases? It is the first duty of every man to do all in his power to maintain this right of self-government where it exists, and to restore it where it has been lost. Men are in such a case labouring, not for the present day only, but for ages to come. If life should not allow them time to see their endeavours crowned, their children will see it.

DANIEL DEFOE

A Journal of the Plague Year

"A Journal of the Plague Year" appeared in 1722. In its second
edition it received the title of "A History of the Plague." This
book was suggested by the public anxiety caused by a fearful
visitation of the plague at Marseilles in the two preceding
years. As an account of the epidemic in London, it has all the
vividness of Defoe's fiction, while it is acknowledged to be
historically accurate. (Defoe biography, see Vol. III, p. 26.)

_I.--A Stricken City_

It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard that the plague was returned again in Holland. We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumours and reports of things; but such things as these were gathered from the letters of merchants, and from them were handed about by word of mouth only. In December, two Frenchmen died of the plague in Long Acre, or, rather, at the upper end of Drury Lane. The secretaries of state got knowledge of it, and two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they did, and, finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies, they gave their opinions publicly, that they died of the plague; whereupon it was given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned them to the Hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner, thus:

Plague, 2; Parishes infected, 1.

The distemper spread slowly, and in the beginning of May, the city being healthy, we began to hope that as the infection was chiefly among the people at the other end of the town, it might go no further. We continued in these hopes for a few days, but it was only for a few, for the people were no more to be deceived thus; they searched the houses, and found that the plague was really spread every way, and that many died of it every day; and accordingly, in the weekly bill for the next week, the thing began to show itself. There was, indeed, but fourteen set down of the plague, but this was all knavery and collusion.

Now the weather set in hot, and from the first week in June the infection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills rose high. Yet all that could conceal their distempers did it to prevent their neighbours shunning them, and also to prevent authority shutting up their houses.

I lived without Aldgate, midway between Aldgate church and Whitechapel Bars, and our neighbourhood continued very easy. But at the other end of the town their consternation was very great, and the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry, from the west part of the city, thronged out of town with their families and servants. In Whitechapel, where I lived, nothing was to be seen but waggons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc., all hurrying away. This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city.

I now began to consider seriously how I should dispose of myself, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee. I had two important things before me: the carrying on of my business and shop, and the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity. My trade was a saddler, and though a single man, I had a family of servants and a house and warehouses filled with goods, and to leave them all without any overseer had been to hazard the loss of all I had in the world.

I had resolved to go; but, one way or other, I always found that to appoint to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again; and I advise every person, in such a case, to keep his eye upon the particular providences which occur at that time, and take them as intimations from Heaven of what is his unquestioned duty to do in such a case. Add to this, that, turning over the Bible which lay before me, I cried out, "Well, I know not what to do; Lord, direct me!" and at that juncture, casting my eye down, I read: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the pestilence that walketh in darkness.... A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." I scarce need tell the reader that from that moment I resolved that I would stay in the town, casting myself entirely upon the protection of the Almighty.

The court removed in the month of June, and went to Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve them; for which I cannot say they showed any great token of thankfulness, and hardly anything of reformation, though they did not want being told that their crying voices might, without breach of charity, have gone far in bringing that terrible judgment upon the whole nation.

A blazing star or comet had appeared for several months before the plague, and there had been universal melancholy apprehensions of some dreadful calamity. The people were at this time more addicted to prophecies, dreams, and old wives' fables, than ever they were before or since. Some ran about the streets with oral predictions, one crying, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed!" Another poor naked creature cried, "Oh, the great and dreadful God!" repeating these words continually, with voice and countenance full of horror, and a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop. Some saw a flaming sword in a hand coming out of a cloud; others, hearses and coffins in the air; others, heaps of dead bodies unburied. But those who were really serious and religious applied themselves in a truly Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humiliation. Many consciences were awakened, many hard hearts melted into tears. People might be heard in the streets as we passed along, calling upon God for mercy, and saying, "I have been a thief," or "a murderer," and the like; and none dared stop to make the least inquiry into such things, or to comfort the poor creatures that thus cried out. The face of London was now strangely altered; it was all in tears; the shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors, where their dearest relations were dead, were enough to pierce the stoutest heart.

About June, the lord mayor and aldermen began more particularly to concern themselves for the regulation of the city, by the shutting up of houses. Examiners were appointed in every parish to order the house to be shut up wherever any person sick of the infection was found. A night watchman and a day watchman were appointed to each infected house to prevent any person from coming out or going into the same. Women searchers were appointed in each parish to examine the bodies of such as were dead, to see if they had died of the infection, and over these were appointed physicians and chirurgeons. Other orders were made with regard to giving notice of sickness, sequestration of the sick, airing the goods and bedding of the infected, burial of the dead, cleansing of the streets, forbidding wandering beggars, loose persons, and idle assemblages, and the like. One of these orders was--"That every house visited be marked with a red cross of a foot long, in the middle of the door, with these words, 'LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US,' to be set close over the same cross." Many got out of their houses by stratagem after they were shut up, and thus spread the plague; in one place they blowed up their watchman with gunpowder and burnt the poor fellow dreadfully, and while he made hideous cries, the whole family got out at the windows; others got out by bribing the watchman, and I have seen three watchmen publicly whipped through the streets for suffering people to go out.

_II.--How the Dead Were Buried_

I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, and when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of Aldgate I could not resist going to see it. A terrible pit it was, forty feet long, about sixteen wide, and in one part they dug it to near twenty feet deep, until they could go no deeper for the water. It was filled in just two weeks, when they had thrown into it 1,114 bodies from our own parish.

I got admittance into the churchyard by the sexton, who at first refused me, but at last said: "Name of God, go in; depend upon it, 'twill be a sermon to you, it may be the best that ever you heard. It is a speaking sight," says he; and with that he opened the door and said, "Go, if you will." I stood wavering for a good while, but just at that interval I saw two links come over from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and then appeared a dead-cart coming over the streets, so I went in.

The scene was awful and full of terror. The cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapped in sheets or rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest. But the matter was not much to them, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it; for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together. The cart was turned round, and the bodies shot into the pit promiscuously.

There was following the cart a poor unhappy gentleman who fell down in a swoon when the bodies were shot into the pit. The buriers ran to him and took him up, and after he had come to himself, they led him away to the Pye tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch. His case lay so heavy on my mind that after I had gone home I must go out again into the street and go to the Pye tavern, to inquire what became of him.

It was by this time one in the morning, and yet the poor gentleman was there. The people of the house were civil and obliging, but there was a dreadful set of fellows that used their house, and who, in the middle of all this horror, met there every night, and behaved with revelling and roaring extravagances, so that the master and mistress of the house were terrified at them. They sat in a room next the street, and as often as the dead-cart came along, they would open the windows and make impudent mocks and jeers at the sad lamentations of the people, especially if they heard the poor people call upon God to have mercy upon them.

They were at this vile work when I came to the house, ridiculing the unfortunate man, and his sorrow for his wife and children, taunting him with want of courage to leap into the pit and go to Heaven with them, and adding profane and blasphemous expressions.

I gently reproved them, being not unknown to two of them. But I cannot call to mind the abominable raillery which they returned to me, making a jest of my calling the plague the Hand of God. They continued this wretched course three or four days; but they were, every one of them, carried into the great pit before it was quite filled up.

In my walks I had daily many dismal scenes before my eyes, as of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and screechings of women, and the like. Passing through Tokenhouse Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried: "Oh Death! Death! Death!" in a most inimitable tone, which struck me with horror and a chillness in my very blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open; for people had no curiosity now, nor could anybody help another. I went on into Bell Alley.

Just in Bell Alley, at the right hand of the passage, there was a more terrible cry than that, and I could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms distracted. A garret window opened, and somebody from a window on the other side of the alley called and asked, "What is the matter?" upon which, from the first window it was answered: "O Lord, my old master has hanged himself!" The other asked again: "Is he quite dead?" And the first answered, "Ay, ay, quite dead--quite dead and cold."

It is scarce credible what dreadful things happened every day, people in the rage of the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was indeed intolerable, oftentimes laying violent hands on themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, etc.; mothers murdering their own children in their lunacy; some dying of mere fright, without any infection; others frightened into despair, idiocy, or madness.

There were a great many robberies and wicked practices committed even in this dreadful time. The power of avarice was so strong in some that they would run any hazard to steal and to plunder; and in houses where all the inhabitants had died and been carried out, they would break in without regard to the danger of infection, and take even the bedclothes.

_III.--Universal Desolation_

For about a month together, I believe there did not die less than 1,500 or 1,700 a day, one day with another; and in the beginning of September good people began to think that God was resolved to make a full end of the people in this miserable city. Whole families, and, indeed, whole streets of families were swept away together, and the infection was so increased that at length they shut up no houses at all. People gave themselves up to their fears, and thought that nothing was to be hoped for but an universal desolation. It was even in the height of this despair that it pleased God to stay His hand, and to slacken the fury of the contagion.

When the people despaired of life and abandoned themselves, it had a very strange effect for three or four weeks; it made them bold and venturous; they were no more shy of one another, nor restrained within doors, but went anywhere and everywhere, and ran desperately into any company. It brought them to crowd into the churches; looking on themselves as all so many dead corpses, they behaved as if their lives were of no consequence, compared to the work which they came about there.

The conduct of the lord mayor and magistrates was all the time admirable, so that bread was always to be had in plenty, and cheap as usual; provisions were never wanting in the markets; the streets were kept free from all manner of frightful objects--dead bodies, or anything unpleasant; and for a time fires were kept burning in the streets to cleanse the air of infection.

Many remedies were tried; but it is my opinion, and I must leave it as a prescription, that the best physic against the plague is to run away from it. I know people encourage themselves by saying, "God is able to keep us in the midst of danger," and this kept thousands in the town, whose carcasses went into the great pits by cart-loads. Yet of the pious ladies who went about distributing alms to the poor, and visiting infected families, though I will not undertake to say that none of those charitable people were suffered to fall under the calamity, yet I may say this, that I never knew any of them to fall under it.

Such is the precipitant disposition of our people, that no sooner had they observed that the distemper was not so catching as formerly, and that if it was catched it was not so mortal, and that abundance of people who really fell sick recovered again daily, than they made no more of the plague than of an ordinary fever, nor indeed so much. They went into the very chambers where others lay sick. This rash conduct cost a great many their lives, who had been preserved all through the heat of the infection, and the bills of mortality increased again four hundred in the first week of November.

But it pleased God, by the continuing of wintry weather, so to restore the health of the city that by February following we reckoned the distemper quite ceased. The time was not far off when the city was to be purged with fire, for within nine months more I saw it all lying in ashes.

I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year with a stanza of my own:

A dreadful plague in London was
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away; yet I alive!

DEMOSTHENES

The Philippics

Demosthenes, by universal consensus of opinion the greatest
orator the world has known, was born at Athens 385 B.C. and
died 322 B.C. His birth took place just nineteen years after
the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War. Losing his father when
he was yet a child, his wealth was frittered away by three
faithless guardians, whom he prosecuted when he came of age.
This dispute, and some other struggles, led him into public
life, and by indomitable perseverance he overcame the difficulty
constituted by certain physical disqualifications. Identifying
himself for life entirely with the interests of Athens, he became
the foremost administrator in the state, as well as its most
eloquent orator. His stainless character, his matchless powers
of advocacy, his fervent patriotism, and his fine diplomacy,
render him altogether one of the noblest figures of antiquity.
His fame rests mainly on "The Philippics"; those magnificent
orations delivered during a series of several years against the
aggressions of Philip of Macedon; though the three "Olynthiacs,"
and the oration "De Coronâ," and several other speeches are
monumental of the genius of Demosthenes, more especially the "De
Coronâ." He continued to resist the Macedonian domination during
the career of Alexander the Great, and was exiled, dying, it is
supposed, by poison administered by himself, at Calauria. (Cf.
also p. 273 of this volume.) This epitome has been prepared from
the original Greek.

_I.--"Men of Athens, Arouse Yourselves!"_

The subject under discussion on this occasion, men of Athens, is not new, and there would be no need to speak further on it if other orators deliberated wisely. First, I advise you not to regard the present aspect of affairs, miserable though it truly is, as entirely hopeless. For the primary cause of the failure is your own mismanagement. If any consider it difficult to overcome Philip because of the power that he has attained, and because of our disastrous loss of many fortresses, they should remember how much he has gained by achieving alliances.

If, now, you will emulate his policy, if every citizen will devote himself assiduously to the service of his country, you will assuredly recover all that has been lost, and punish Philip. For he has his enemies, even among his pretended friends. All dread him because your inertia has prevented you from providing any refuge for them. Hence the height of arrogance which he now displays and the constantly expanding area of his conquests.

When, men of Athens, will you realise that your attitude is the cause of this situation? For you idle about, indulging in gossip over circumstances, instead of grappling with the actualities. Were this antagonist to pass away, another enemy like him would speedily be produced by your policy, for Philip is what he is not so much through his own prowess as through your own indifference.

As to the plan of action to be initiated, I say that we must inaugurate it by providing fifty triremes, also the cavalry and transports and boats needed for the fleet. Thus we should be fully prepared to cope with the sudden excursions of Philip to Thermopylæ or any other point. Besides this naval force, you should equip an army of 2,000 foot soldiers, of whom 500 should be Athenians, the remainder mercenaries, together with 250 cavalry, including 50 Athenians. Lastly, we should have an auxiliary naval contingent of ten swift galleys.

We are now conducting affairs farcically. For we act neither as if we were at peace, nor as if we had entered on a war. You enlist your soldiers not for warfare, but for religious pageants, and for parades and processions in the market-place. We must consolidate our resources, embody permanent forces, not temporary levies hastily enlisted, and we must secure winter quarters for our troops in those islands which possess harbours and granaries for the corn.

No longer, men of Athens, must you continue the mere discussion of measures without ever executing any of your projects. Remember that Philip sustains his power by drawing on the resources of your own allies.

But by adopting my plan you will at one and the same time deprive him of his chief sources of supply, and place yourselves out of the reach of danger. The policy he has hitherto pursued will be effectually thwarted. No longer will he be able to capture your citizens, as he did by attacking Lemnos and Imbros, or to seize your Paralus, as he did on his descent at Marathon.

But, men of Athens, you spend far larger sums of money on the splendid Panathenaic and Dionysian festivals than on your naval and military armaments. Moreover, those festivals are always punctually celebrated, while your preparations for war are always behindhand. Then, when a critical juncture arrives, we find our forces are totally inadequate to the emergency.

Having larger resources than any other state, you, Athenians, have never adequately availed yourselves of them. You never anticipate the movements of Philip, but simply drift after him, sending forces to Thermopylæ if you hear he is there, or to any other quarter where he may happen to be. Such policy might formerly be excused, but now it is as disgraceful as it is intolerable. Are we to wait for Philip's aggressiveness to cease? It never will do so unless we resist it. Shall we not assume the offensive and descend on his coast with some of our forces?

Nothing will result from mere oratory and from mutual recrimination among ourselves. My own conviction is that Philip is encouraged by our inertia, and that he is carried away by his own successes, but that he has no fixed plan of action that can be guessed by foolish chatterers. Men of Athens, let us for the future abandon such an attitude, and let us bear in mind that we must depend not on the help of others, but on ourselves alone. Unless we go to attack Philip where he is, Philip will come to attack us where we are.

_II.--Beware the Guile of Philip_

Nothing, men of Athens, is done as a sequel to the speeches which are delivered and approved concerning the outrageous proceedings of Philip. You are earnest in discussion; he is earnest in action. If we are to be complacently content because we employ the better arguments, well and good; but if we are successfully to resist this formidable and increasing power, we must be prepared to entertain advice that is salutary, however unpalatable, rather than counsel which is easy and pleasant.

If you give me any credit for clear perception, I beg you to attend to what I plead. After subduing Thermopylæ and the Phocians, Philip quickly apprehended that you could not be induced by any selfish considerations to abandon other Greek states to him. The Thebans, Messenians, and Argives he lured by bribes. But he knew how, in the past, your predecessors scorned the overtures of his ancestor, Alexander of Macedon, sent by Mardonius the Persian to induce the Athenians to betray the rest of the Greeks. It was not so with the Argives and the Thebans, and thus Philip calculates that their successors will care nothing for the interests of the Greeks generally. So he favours them, but not you.

Everything demonstrates Philip's animosity against Athens. He is instinctively aware that you are conscious of his plots against you, and ascribes to you a feeling of hatred against him. Eager to be beforehand with us, he continues to negotiate with Thebans and Peloponnesians, assuming that they may be beguiled with ease.

I call to mind how I addressed the Messenians and the Argives, reminding them how Philip had dishonourably given certain of their territories to the Olynthians. Would the Olynthians then have listened to any disparagements of Philip? Assuredly not. Yet they were soon shamefully betrayed and cheated by him. It is unsafe for commonwealths to place confidence in despots. In like manner were the Thessalians deceived when he had ejected their tyrants and had restored to them Nicasa and Magnesia, for he instituted the new tyranny of the Decemvirate. Philip is equally ready with gifts and promises on the one hand, and with fraud and deceit on the other.

"By Jupiter," said I to those auditors, "the only infallible defence of democracies against despots is the absolute refusal of all confidence in them. Always to mistrust them is the only safeguard. What is it that you seek to secure? Liberty? Then do you not perceive that the very titles worn by Philip prove him to be adverse to this? For every king and tyrant is an enemy to freedom and an opponent to laws."

But though my speeches and those of other emissaries were received with vociferous applause, all the same those who thus manifested profound approbation will never be able to resist the blandishments and overtures of Philip. It may well be so with those other Greeks. But you, O Athenians, surely should understand your own interests better. For otherwise irreparable disaster must ensue.

In justice, men of Athens, you should summon the men who communicated to you the promises which induced you to consent to peace. Their statements misled us; otherwise, neither would I have gone as ambassador, nor would you have ceased hostilities. Also, you should call those who, after my return from my second embassy, contradicted my report. I then protested against the abandonment of Thermopylæ and of the Phocians.

They ridiculed me as a water-drinker, and they persuaded you that Philip would cede to you Oropus and Eubœa in exchange for Amphipolis, and also that he would humble the Thebans and at his own charges cut through the Chersonese. Your anger will be excited in due time when you realise what you have hitherto disregarded, namely, that these projects on the part of Philip are devised against Athens.

Though all know it only too well, let me remind you who it was, even Æschines himself, who induced you by his persuasion to abandon Thermopylæ and Phocis. By possessing control over these, Philip now commands also the road to Attica and Peloponnesus.

Hence the present situation is this, that you must now consider, not distant affairs, but the means of defending your homes and of conducting a war in Attica, that war having become inevitable through those events, grievous though it will be to every citizen when it begins. May the gods grant that the worst fears be not fully confirmed!

_III.--Athens Must Head the War_

Various circumstances, men of Athens, have reduced our affairs to the worst possible state, this lamentable crisis being due mainly to the specious orators who seek rather to please you than wisely to guide you. Flattery has generated perilous complacency, and now the position is one of extreme danger. I am willing either to preserve silence, or to speak frankly, according to your disposition. Yet all may be repaired if you awaken to your duty, for Philip has not conquered you; you have simply made no real effort against him.

Strange to say, while Philip is actually seizing cities and appropriating various portions of our territory, some among us affirm that there is really no war. Thus, caution is needed in speech, for those who suggest defensive measures may afterwards be indicted for causing hostilities. Now, let those who maintain that we are at peace propose a resolution for suitable plans. But if you are invaded by an armed aggressor, who pretends to be at peace with you, what can you do but initiate measures of defence?

Both sides may profess to be at peace, and I do not demur; but it is madness to style that a condition of peace which allows Philip to subjugate all other states and then to assail you last of all. His method of proceeding is to prepare to attack you, while securing immunity from the danger of being attacked by you.

If we wait for him to declare war, we wait in vain. For he will treat us as he did the Olynthians and the Phocians. Professing to be their ally, he appropriated territories belonging to them. Do you imagine he would declare war against you before commencing operations of encroachment? Never, so long as he knows that you are willing to be deceived.

By a series of operations he has been infringing the peace: by his attempt to seize Megara, by his intervention in Eubœa, by his excursion into Thrace. I reckon that the virtual beginnings of hostilities must be dated from the day that he completed the subjugation of the Thracians. From your other orators I differ in deeming any discussion irrelevant respecting the Chersonese or Byzantium. Aid these, indeed; but let the safety of all Greece alike be the subject of your deliberations.

What I would emphasise is that to Philip have been conceded liberties of encroachment and aggression, by you first of all, such as in former days were always contested by war. He has attacked and enslaved city after city of the Greeks. You Athenians were for seventy-three years the supreme leaders in Hellas, as were the Spartans for twenty-nine years. Then after the battle of Leuctra the Thebans acquired paramount influence. But neither you nor these others ever arrogated the right to act according to your pleasure.

If you appeared to act superciliously towards any state, all the other states sided with that one which was aggrieved. Yet all the errors committed by our predecessors and by those of the Spartans during the whole of that century were trivial compared with the wrongs perpetrated by Philip during these thirteen years. Cruel has been his destruction of Olynthus, of Methone, of Apollonia, and of thirty-two cities on the borders of Thrace, and also the extermination of the Phocians. And now he domineers ruthlessly over Thessaly and Eubœa. Yet all we Greeks of various nationalities are in so abjectly miserable a condition that, instead of arranging embassies and declaring our indignation, we entrench ourselves in isolation in our several cities.

It must be reflected that when wrongs were inflicted by other states, by us or the Spartans, these faults were at any rate committed by genuine sons of Greece. How much more hateful is the offence when perpetrated against a household by a slave or an alien than by a son or other member of the family! But Philip is not only no son of Hellas; he is not even a reputable barbarian, but only a vile fellow of Macedon, a country from which formerly even a respectable slave could not be purchased!

What is lacking to his unspeakable arrogance? Does he not assemble the Pythian games, command Thermopylæ, garrison the passes, secure prior access to the oracle at Delphi, and dictate the form of government for Thessaly? All this the Greeks look upon with toleration; they seem to regard it as they would some tempest, each hoping it will fall on someone else. We are all passive and despondent, mutually distrusting each other instead of the common foe.

How different the noble spirit of former days! How different that old passion for liberty which is now superseded by the love of servitude! Then corruption was so deeply detested that there was no pardon for the guilt of bribery. Now venality is laughed at and bribery goes unpunished. In ships, men, equipment, and revenues our resources are larger than ever before, but corruption neutralises them all.

But preparations for war are not sufficient. You must not only be ready to encounter the foes without, but must punish those who among you are the creatures of Philip, like those who caused the ruin of Olynthus by betraying the cavalry and by securing the banishment of Apollonides. Similar treachery brought about the downfall of other cities. The same fate may befall us. What, then, must be done?

When we have done all that is needful for our own defence, let us next send our emissaries to all the other states with the intelligence that we are ready. If you imagine that others will save Greece while you avoid the conflict, you cherish a fatal delusion. This enterprise devolves on you; you inherit it from your ancestors.

_IV.--Exterminate the Traitors!_

Men of Athens, your chief misfortune is that, though for the passing moment you heed important news, you speedily scatter and forget what you have just heard. You have become fully acquainted with the doings of Philip, and you well know how great is his ambition; and yet, so profound has been our indifference that we have earned the contempt of several other states, which now prefer to undertake their defence separately rather than in alliance with us.

You must become more deeply convinced than you have been hitherto that our destruction is the supreme anxiety of Philip. The special object of his hatred is your democratic constitution. Our mode of procedure is a mockery, for we are always behind in the execution of our schemes. You must form a permanent army with a regular organisation, and with funds sufficient for its maintenance.

Most of all, money is needed to meet coming requirements. There was a time when money was forthcoming and everything necessary was performed. Why do we now decline to do our duty? In a time of peril to the commonwealth the affluent should freely contribute of their possessions for the welfare of the country; but each class has its obligations to the state and should observe them.

Many and inveterate are the causes of our present difficulties. You, O Athenians, have surrendered the august position which your predecessors bequeathed you, and have indolently permitted a stranger to usurp it. The present crisis involves peril for all the states, but to Athens most of all; and that not so much on account of Philip's schemes of conquest, as of your neglect.

How is it, Athenians, that none affirm concerning Philip that he is guilty of aggression, even while he is seizing cities, while those who advise resistance are indicated as inciting to war? The reason is that those who have been corrupted believe that if you do resist him you will overcome him, and they can no longer secure the reward of treachery.

Remember what you have at stake. Should you fall under the dominion of Philip, he will show you no pity, for his desire is not merely to subdue Athens, but to destroy it. The struggle will be to the death; therefore, those who would sell the country to him you must exterminate without scruple. This is the only city where such treacherous citizens can dare to speak in his favour. Only here may a man safely accept a bribe and openly address the people.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

English Traits

In 1847 Emerson (see Vol. XIII, p. 339) made his second visit to
England, this time on a lecturing tour. An outcome of the visit
was "English Traits," which was first published in 1856. "I leave
England," he wrote on his return home, "with an increased respect
for the Englishman. His stuff or substance seems to be the best
in the world." "English Traits" deals with a series of definite
subjects which do not admit of much philosophic digression, and
there is, therefore, an absence of the flashes of spiritual and
poetic insight which gave Emerson his charm.

_I.--The Anchorage of Britain_

I did not go very willingly to England. I am not a good traveller, nor have I found that long journeys yield a fair share of reasonable hours. I find a sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives. The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look what egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one filled with men in ecstasies of terror alternating with cockney conceit, as it is rough or smooth. But to the geologist the sea is the only firmament; it is the land that is in perpetual flux and change. It has been said that the King of England would consult his dignity by giving audience to foreign ambassadors in the cabin of a man-of-war; and I think the white path of an Atlantic ship is the right avenue to the palace-front of this seafaring people.

England is a garden. Under an ash-coloured sky, the fields have been combed and rolled till they appear to have been finished with a pencil instead of a plough. Rivers, hills, valleys, the sea itself, feel the hand of a master. The problem of the traveller landing in Liverpool is, Why England is England? What are the elements of that power which the English hold over other nations? If there be one test of national genius universally accepted, it is success; and if there be one successful country in the universe that country is England.

The culture of the day, the thoughts and aims of men, are English thoughts and aims. A nation considerable for a thousand years has in the last centuries obtained the ascendant, and stamped the knowledge, activity, and power of mankind with its impress.

The territory has a singular perfection. Neither hot nor cold, there is no hour in the whole year when one cannot work. The only drawback to industrial conveniency is the darkness of the sky. The night and day are too nearly of a colour.

England resembles a ship in shape, and, if it were one, its best admiral could not have anchored it in a more judicious or effective position. The shop-keeping nation, to use a shop word, has a good stand. It is anchored at the side of Europe, and right in the heart of the modern world.

In variety of surface Britain is a miniature of Europe, as if Nature had given it an artificial completeness. It is as if Nature had held counsel with herself and said: "My Romans are gone. To build my new empire I will choose a rude race, all masculine, with brutish strength. Sharp and temperate northern breezes shall blow to keep them alive and alert. The sea shall disjoin the people from others and knit them by a fierce nationality. Long time will I keep them on their feet, by poverty, border-wars, seafaring, sea-risks, and stimulus of gain." A singular coincidence to this geographic centrality is the spiritual centrality which Emanuel Swedenborg ascribes to the people: "The English nation are in the centre of all Christians, because they have an interior intellectual light. This light they derive from the liberty of speaking and writing, and thereby of thinking."

_II.--Racial Characteristics_

The British Empire is reckoned to contain a fifth of the population of the globe; but what makes the British census proper important is the quality of the units that compose it. They are free, forcible men in a country where life has reached the greatest value. They have sound bodies and supreme endurance in war and in labour. They have assimilating force, since they are imitated by their foreign subjects; and they are still aggressive and propagandist, enlarging the dominion of their arts and liberty.

The English composite character betrays a mixed origin. Everything English is a fusion of distant and antagonistic elements. The language is mixed; the currents of thought are counter; contemplation and practical skill; active intellect and dead conservatism; world-wide enterprise and devoted use and wont; a country of extremes--nothing in it can be praised without damning exceptions, and nothing denounced without salvos of cordial praise.

The sources from which tradition derives its stock are mainly three: First, the Celtic--a people of hidden and precarious genius; second, the Germans, a people about whom, in the old empire, the rumour ran there was never any that meddled with them that repented it not; and, third, the Norsemen and the children out of France. Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth that decent and dignified men now existing actually boast their descent from these filthy thieves.

As soon as this land, thus geographically posted, got a hardy people into it, they could not help becoming the sailors and factors of the world. The English, at the present day, have great vigour of body. They are round, ruddy, and handsome, with a tendency to stout and powerful frames. It is the fault of their forms that they grow stocky, but in all ages they are a handsome race, and please by an expression blending good nature, valour, refinement, and an uncorrupt youth in the face of manhood.

The English are rather manly than warlike. They delight in the antagonism which combines in one person the extremes of courage and tenderness. Nelson, dying at Trafalgar, says, "Kiss me, Hardy," and turns to sleep. Even for their highwaymen this virtue is claimed, and Robin Hood is the gentlest thief. But they know where their war-dogs lie, and Cromwell, Blake, Marlborough, Nelson, and Wellington are not to be trifled with.

They have vigorous health and last well into middle and old age. They have more constitutional energy than any other people. They box, run, shoot, ride, row, and sail from Pole to Pole. They are the most voracious people of prey that have ever existed, and they have written the game-books of all countries.

These Saxons are the hands of mankind--the world's wealth-makers. They have that temperament which resists every means employed to make its possessor subservient to others. The English game is main force to main force, the planting of foot to foot, fair play and an open field--a rough tug without trick or dodging till one or both comes to pieces. They hate craft and subtlety; and when they have pounded each other to a poultice they will shake hands and be friends for the remainder of their lives.

Their realistic logic of coupling means to ends has given them the leadership of the modern world. Montesquieu said: "No people have true commonsense but those who are born in England." This commonsense is a perception of laws that cannot be stated, or that are learned only by practice, with allowance for friction. The bias of the nation is a passion for utility. They are heavy at the fine arts, but adroit at the coarse. The Frenchman invented the ruffle, the Englishman added the shirt. They think him the best-dressed man whose dress is so fit for his use that you cannot notice or remember to describe it.

In war the Englishman looks to his means; but, conscious that no better race of men exists, they rely most on the simplest means. They fundamentally believe that the best stratagem in naval war is to bring your ship alongside of the enemy's ship, and bring all your guns to bear on him until you or he go to the bottom. This is the old fashion which never goes out of fashion.

Tacitus said of the Germans: "Powerful only in sudden efforts, they are impatient of toil and labour." This highly destined race, if it had not somewhere added the chamber of patience to its brain, would not have built London. I know not from which of the tribes and temperaments that went to the composition of the people this tenacity was supplied, but they clinch every nail they drive. "To show capacity," a Frenchman described as the end of speech in a debate. "No," said an Englishman, "but to advance the business."