The Arena. Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891

As regards the “great houses” of the place, Westbury-on-Trym enjoys a curious monopoly of handsome private mansions. These mansions—spacious, finely built, each standing in its own park-like grounds—were built for the most part by wealthy Bristol merchants during the two last centuries—men of wealth, who needed to reside within an easy drive of the city, and who were content to amass great fortunes without also desiring to become land-owners. The Bristol merchants of the present day no longer care to live so near their business. Railways and steamers enable them to go farther afield; and so the fine old houses of Westbury, Henbury, Redland, Shirehampton, Brislington, and other parishes round about the great commercial centre, have gradually passed into the possession of a class of moneyed gentry who, having neither trade nor land, are attracted by the fine climate and beautiful scenery of this part of England. Some few of these old mansions are renowned for the valuable collections of paintings and other works of art which they contain; as, for instance, at Blaise Castle, there is a fine series of specimens of the old masters purchased at the close of the great war during the first quarter of the present century by Mr. Harford, grandfather of the present owner; a series which comprises a fine Guido, several specimens of the Caracci, Salvator Rosa, etc. At Kings-Weston Park, we find the family portraits of the de Cliffords purchased, together with the very fine old house built by Vanbrugh in the time of Charles II., by the late owner, Philip Miles, Esq. At Leigh Court, the gallery, with its famous Leonardo, is known throughout Europe, while many other art treasures are to be found in the possession of private owners round about the neighborhood.

It is not to be supposed that the writer and subject of this present paper resides in semi-royal state in one of these magnificent old houses. On the contrary, she lives, and has lived for more than a quarter of a century, with a very dear friend, in a small, irregularly built house, which together they have from time to time enlarged and improved, according to their pleasure. That friend—now in her eighty-seventh year—used, in days long gone by, to gather round her table many of the wits and celebrities of fifty years ago; but for her, as for myself, our little country home has been as dear for its seclusion as for the charm of its neighborhood.

The Larches stands, with some few other houses of like dimensions, on a space of high-level ground to the eastward of the village. It is approached by a narrow lane, beyond which lie fields and open country. Having at first been quite a small cottage, it has been added to by successive owners, and is, consequently, quite destitute of external or internal uniformity. My own library, and the bedrooms above it, are, for the present, the latest additions to the structure; though I hope some day to build on a little room which I shall not venture to call a museum, but which shall contain my Egyptian antiquities and other collections.

The little house stands in one acre of ground, closely walled in, and surrounded by high shrubs and lofty larch trees. It is up and down a straight path in the shade of these larch trees that I take my daily exercise; and if I am to enter into such minor particulars as are dear to the writers and readers of “At Home” articles, I may mention that a dial-register is affixed to the wall of a small grape-house at one end of this path, by means of which I measure off my regular half-mile before breakfast, my half mile after breakfast, and the mile or more with which I finish up my pedestrian duties in the late afternoon. To walk these two miles per diem is a Draconian law which I impose upon myself during all seasons of the year. When the snow lies deep in winter, it is our old gardener’s first duty in the morning to sweep “Miss Edwards’ path,” as well as to clear two or three large spaces on the lawn, in which the wild birds may be fed. The wild birds, I should add, are our intimate friends and perennial visitors, for whom we keep an open table d’hôte throughout the year. By feeding them in summer we lose less fruit than our neighbors; and by feeding them in winter we preserve the lives of our little summer friends, whose songs are the delight of ourselves and our neighbors in the springtime. There are dozens of nests every summer in the ivy which clusters thickly around my library windows; and we even carry our hospitality so far as to erect small rows of model lodging-houses for our birds high up under the eaves, which they inhabit in winter, and in which many couples of sparrows and starlings rear their young throughout the summer.

We will now leave the garden, and go into the house, which stands high on a grassy platform facing the sunny west. We enter by a wooden porch, which, as I write, is thickly covered with roses. As soon as the front door is opened, the incoming visitor finds himself in the midst of modern Egypt, the walls of the hall being lined with Damascus tiles and Cairene woodwork, the spoils of some of those Meshrabeeyeh windows which are so fast disappearing both in Alexandria and Cairo. In a recess opposite the door stands a fine old chair inlaid with ivory and various colored woods, which some two hundred years ago was the Episcopal chair of a Coptic bishop. The rest of the hall furniture is of Egyptian inlaid work. Every available inch of space on the walls is filled and over-filled with curiosities of all descriptions. On one bracket stand an old Italian ewer and plate in wrought brass work; on another, a Nile “Kulleh” or water bottle, and a pair of cups of unbaked clay; on others again, jars and pots of Indian, Morocco, Japanese, Siût, and Algerian ware. Here also, are a couple of funerary tablets in carved limestone, of ancient Egyptian work; a fragment of limestone cornice from the ruins of Naukratis; and various specimens of Majolica, old Wedgewood, and other ware, as well as framed specimens of Rhodian and Damascus tiles.

If my visitor is admitted at all, which for reasons which I will presently state is extremely doubtful, he passes through the hall, leaving the dining-room to his right and the drawing-room to his left, and is ushered along a passage, also lined with lattice-work, through a little ante-room, and into my library. This is a fair-sized room with a bay of three windows at the upper end facing eastward. My writing-table is placed somewhat near this window; and here I sit with my back to the light facing whomsoever may be shown into the room.

Sitting thus at my desk, the room to me is full of reminiscences of many friends and many places. The walls are lined with glazed bookcases containing the volumes which I have been slowly amassing from the time I was fourteen or fifteen years of age. I cast my eyes round the shelves, and I recognize in their contents the different lines of study which I have pursued at different periods of my life. Like the geological strata in the side of a cliff, they show the deposits of successive periods, and remind me, not only of the changes which my own literary tastes have undergone, but also of the various literary undertakings in which I have been from time to time engaged. The shelves devoted to the British poets carry me back to a time when I read them straight through without a break, from Chaucer to Tennyson. A large number of histories of England and works of British biography are due to a time when I was chiefly occupied in writing the letterpress to “The Photographic Historical Portrait Gallery,”—a very beautiful publication illustrated with photographs of historical miniatures, which never reached a second volume, and is now, I believe, extremely scarce. An equally voluminous series of histories of Greece and Rome, and of translations of the Greek and Latin poets, marks the time when I first became deeply interested in classic antiquity. To this phase also belong the beginnings of those archæological works which I have of late years accumulated almost to the exclusion of all other books, as well as my collection of volumes upon Homer, which nearly fill one division of a bookcase. When I left London some six and twenty years ago to settle at Westbury-on-Trym, I also added to my library a large number of works on the fine arts, feeling, as every lover of pictures must do, that it is necessary, in some way or another, to make up for the loss of the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, and other delightful places which I was leaving behind. At this time, also, I had a passion for Turner, and eagerly collected his engraved works, of which I believe I possess nearly all. I think I may say the same of Samuel Prout. Of Shakespeare I have almost as many editions as I have translations of Homer; and of European histories, works of reference generally, a writer who lives in the country must, of course, possess a goodly number. Of rare books I do not pretend to have many. A single shelf contains a few good old works, including a fine black-letter Chaucer, the Venetian Dante of 1578, and some fine examples of the Elizabethan period. I soon found, however, that this taste was far too expensive to cultivate. Last of all, in what I may call the upper Egyptological stratum of my books, come those on Egypt and Egyptian archæology, a class of works deeply interesting to those who make Egyptology their study, but profoundly dull to everybody else.

Such are my books. If, however, I were to show my visitor what I consider my choicest treasures, I should take down volumes which have been given to me by friends, some now far distant, others departed. Here, for instance, is the folio edition of Doré’s “Don Quichotte,” on the fly-leaf of which he signs himself as my “ami affectueux;” or some of the works of my dear friend of many years, John Addington Symonds, especially “Many Moods,” which he has dedicated to myself. Or I would take down the first volume of “The Ring and the Book,” containing a delightful inscription from the pen of Robert Browning; or the late Lord Lytton’s version of the Odes of Horace, in which is inserted an interesting letter on the method and spirit of his translation, addressed to me at the time of its publication. Next to this stands a presentation copy of Sir Theodore Martin’s translation of the same immortal poems. To most persons these would be more interesting than other and later presentation volumes from various foreign savants—Maspero, Naville, Ebers, Wiedemann, and others.

I am often asked how many books I possess, and I can only reply that I have not the least idea, having lost count of them for many years. Those which are in sight are attired in purple and fine linen, beautiful bindings having once upon a time been one of my hobbies; but behind the beautiful bindings, many of which were executed from my own designs, are other books in modest cloth and paper wrappers; so that the volumes are always two rows, and sometimes even three rows deep. If I had not a tolerably good memory, I should certainly be very much perplexed by this arrangement, the more especially as my only catalogue is in my head.

I fear I am allowing myself to say too much about my books; yet, after all, they represent a large part of myself. My life, since I have lived at The Larches, has been one of ever-increasing seclusion, and my books have for many years been my daily companions, teachers, and friends. Merely to lean back in one’s chair now and then—merely to lean back and look at them—is a pleasure, a stimulus, and in some sense a gain. For, as it seems to me, there is a virtue which goes out from even the backs of one’s books; and though to glance along the shelves without taking down a single volume be but a Barmecide feast, yet the tired brain is consciously refreshed by it.

Although the room is essentially a bookroom, there are other things than books to which one can turn for a momentary change of thought. In yonder corner, for instance, stands an easel, the picture upon which is constantly changed. To-day, it will be a water-color sketch by John Lewis; to-morrow, an etching by Albert Dürer or Seymour Haden; the next day, an oil painting by Elihu Vedder, or perhaps an ancient Egyptian funerary papyrus, with curious pen-and-ink vignettes of gods and genii surmounting the closely written columns of hieroglyphic text.

For, you see, I have no wall space in my library upon which to hang pictures; and yet, I am not happy, and my thoughts are not rightly in tune, unless I have a picture or two in sight, somewhere about the room. In the corners, hidden away behind pedestals and curtains, a quick eye may detect stacks of pictures, ready to be brought out and put on the easel when needed. On the pedestals stand plaster casts of busts from antique originals in the Louvre, the Uffizzi Gallery, and the British Museum; and yonder, beside the arched entrance between the ante-room and the library, stands a small white marble torso of a semi-recumbent river god which I picked up years ago from amid the dusty stores of a little curiosity-shop in one of the small by-streets near Soho Square. It is a splendid fragment, so powerfully and learnedly modelled, that no less a critic than the late Charles Blanc once suggested to me that it might be a trial-sketch by a pupil of Michael Angelo, or even by the master himself. Curiously enough, this little masterpiece, which has lost both arms from below the shoulders and both legs from above the knee, was wrecked before its completion; the face, the beard, the hair and the back being little more than blocked out, whereas, the forepart of the trunk is highly finished. On the opposite side of the archway, in an iron tripod, stands a large terra-cotta amphora found in the cellar of a Roman villa discovered in 1872, close behind the Baths of Caracalla.

As I happened to be spending that winter in Rome, I went, of course, to see the new “scavo,” and there were the big jars standing in the cellar, just as in the lifetime of the ancient owner. I need scarcely say that I bought mine on the spot.

It is such associations as these which are the collector’s greatest pleasures. Each object recalls the place and circumstances of its purchase, brings back incidents of foreign travel, and opens up long vistas of delightful memories. For me, every bit of old pottery on the tops of the bookcases has its history. That Majolica jar painted with the Medici arms, and those Montelupo plates, were bought in Florence; those brass salvers with heads of Doges in repoussé work were picked up in a dark old shop on one of the side canals of Venice. The tall jars, yellow, green, white, and brown, with grotesque dragon mouths and twisted handles, are of Gallipoli make, and I got them at a shop in an out-of-the-way court at the top of a blind alley in Stamboul.

I have said that there are reasons why an intending visitor might, perchance, fail to penetrate as far as this den of books and bric-à-brac, and I might allege a considerable number, but they may all be summed up in the one deplorable fact that there are but twenty-four hours to the day, and seven days to the week. Time is precious to me, and leisure is a thing unknown. If, however, the said visitor is of congenial tastes, has gained admittance, and finds me less busy than usual, he will, perhaps, be let into the secret of certain hidden treasures, the existence of which is unsuspected by the casual caller. For dearer to me than all the rest of my curios are my Egyptian antiquities; and of these, strange to say, though none of them are in sight, I have enough to stock a modest little museum. Stowed away in all kinds of nooks and corners, in upstairs cupboards, in boxes, drawers, and cases innumerable, behind books, and invading the sanctity of glass closets and wardrobes, are hundreds, nay, thousands, of those fascinating objects in bronze and glazed ware, in carved wood and ivory, in glass, and pottery, and sculptured stone, which are the delight of archæologists and collectors. Here, for instance, behind the “Revue Archeologique” packed side by side as closely as figs in a box, are all the gods of Egypt,—fantastic little porcelain figures plumed and horned, bird-headed, animal-headed, and the like. Their reign, it is true, may be over in the Valley of the Nile, but in me they still have a fervent adorer. Were I inclined to worship them with due antique ceremonial, there are two libation tables in one of the attics ready to my hand, carved with semblances of sacrificial meats and drinks; or here, in a tin box behind the “Retrospective Review,” are specimens of actual food offerings deposited three thousand years ago in various tombs at Thebes—shrivelled dates, lentils, nuts, and even a slice of bread. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulets, mirrors, and toilet objects, once the delight of dusky beauties long since embalmed and forgotten; funerary statuettes, scarabs, rolls of mummy cloth, and the like are laid by “in a sacred gloom” from which they are rarely, if ever, brought forth into the light of day. And there are stranger things than these,—fragments of spiced and bituminized humanity to be shown to visitors who are not nervous, nor given to midnight terrors. Here is a baby’s foot (some mother cried over it once) in the Japanese cabinet in the ante-room. There are three mummied hands behind “Allibone’s Dictionary of English Authors,” in the library. There are two arms with hands complete—the one almost black, the other singularly fair,—in a drawer in my dressing-room; and grimmest of all, I have the heads of two ancient Egyptians in a wardrobe in my bedroom, who, perhaps, talk to each other in the watches of the night, when I am sound asleep. As, however, I am not writing a catalogue of my collection, I will only mention that there is a somewhat battered statue of a Prince of Kush standing upright in his packing-case, like a sentry in a sentry-box, in an empty coach-house at the bottom of the garden.

It may, perhaps, be objected to my treatment of this subject that I have described only my “home,” and that, being myself, I have not described Miss Edwards. This is a task which I cannot pretend to perform in a manner satisfactory either to myself or the reader. My personal appearance has, however, been so fully depicted in the columns of some hundreds of newspapers, that I have but to draw upon the descriptions given by my brethren of the press, in order to fill what would otherwise be an inevitable gap in the present article. By one, for instance, I am said to have “coal-black hair and flashing black eyes”; by another, that same hair is said to be “snow-white”; while a third describes it as “iron-gray, and rolled back in a large wave.” On one occasion, as I am informed, I had “a commanding and Cassandra-like presence”; elsewhere, I was “tall, slender, and engaging”; and occasionally I am merely of “middle height” and, alas! “somewhat inclined to embonpoint.” As it is obviously so easy to realize what I am like from the foregoing data, I need say no more on the subject.

With regard to “my manners and customs” and the course of my daily life, there is little or nothing to tell. I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood. When I am asked what are my working hours, I reply:—“All the time when I am not either sitting at meals, taking exercise, or sleeping”; and this is literally true. I live with the pen in my hand, not only from morning till night, but sometimes from night till morning. I have, in fact, been a night bird ever since I came out of the schoolroom, when I habitually sat up reading till long past midnight. Later on, when I adopted literature as a profession, I still found that “To steal a few hours from the night” was to ensure the quietest time, and the pleasantest, for pen and brain work; and, for at least the last twenty-five years, I have rarely put out my lamp before two or three in the morning. Occasionally, when work presses and a manuscript has to be despatched by the earliest morning mail, I remain at my desk the whole night through; and I can with certainty say that the last chapter of every book I have ever written has been finished at early morning. In summertime, it is certainly delightful to draw up the blinds and complete in sunlight a task begun when the lamps were lighted in the evening.

And this reminds me of a little incident—too trivial, perhaps, to be worth recording—which befell me so long ago as 1873. I had visited the Dolomites during the previous summer, not returning to England till close upon Christmastime, and I had been occupied during the greater part of the spring in preparing that account of the journey entitled “Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys.” Time ran somewhat short towards the last, as my publishers were anxious to produce the volume early in June; and when it came to the point of finishing off, I sat up all through one beautiful night in May, till the farewell words were written. At the very moment when, with a sigh of satisfaction, I laid down my pen, a wandering nightingale on the pear-tree outside my library window, burst into such a flood of song as I have never heard before or since. The pear-tree was in full blossom; the sky behind it was blue and cloudless; and as I listened to the unwonted music, I could not help thinking that, had I been a pious scribe of the Middle Ages who had just finished a laboriously written life of some departed saint, I should inevitably have believed that the bird was a ghostly messenger sent by the good saint himself to congratulate me upon the completion of my task.

THE TYRANNY OF NATIONALISM.[12 - This article is a reply to “The Tyranny of All the People,” by the Rev. Francis Bellamy, in July Arena.]

BY M. J. SAVAGE

It is a somewhat curious task to which I find myself set. To go on with it may be to lay myself open to censure on the part of the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” What would have been thought of the famous Davy Crockett, if he had fired his gun after the coon had said, “Don’t shoot, for I will come right down”? But the Rev. Francis Bellamy “comes right down” before anybody is in sight with a gun at all. He argues, indeed, in favor of nationalism; but, before he begins, he whispers to you, confidentially, that he is not much of a nationalist after all. Like Bottom, in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he is anxious not to scare anybody, and so lets out the secret that he is not a “truly” lion, but is only “taking the part.” In effect he tells the audience that “I will roar you as gently as a sucking dove.”

Let us see, from his own words, how much of a nationalist, and what kind of a one he really is. “It is not without some question, however, that I accept the generous challenge.” (That is, to reply to the editor of The Arena.) “For I am not sure that I myself believe in the military type of socialism which the editor seems continually to have in mind. The book (‘Looking Backward’) which, more than all others combined, has brought socialism before American thought, has also furnished to its opponents a splendidly clear target in its military organization. It cannot be repeated too often, however, that the army type is not conceded by socialists to be an essential, even if nationalistic, socialism.”

Later on, speaking of “the hostile critics,” he says: “They delight to picture the superb riot of corruption, if nationalists could have their way at once. They will never listen, they will never remember, while nationalists declare they would not have their way at once if they could. A catastrophe by which nationalistic socialism might be precipitated would be a deplorable disaster to human progress.”

Later still, he brings out the idea that all he seeks is to begin, in a small way, with towns and cities, and see how it works.

And once more he declares, “We certainly want no nationalism that is not an orderly development.” … “Nationalism is only a prophecy. It is too distant to be certainly detailed.” (“For this relief, much thanks!”) … “We may be inspired by it as the end towards which present movements are tending. But each age solves its own problems; and the passage into the promised land is the issue for another generation. A nearer view alone can determine where the passage is, and whether the land is truly desirable….

“Meantime, what our people must vote upon in the present year of grace is whether great private corporations shall control legislatures and city councils, and charge their own unquestioned prices for such public necessities of life as light and transit…. The future is in the hands of evolution.”

This latter paragraph challenges and receives my most unbounded admiration. It is one of the neatest changes of base I ever witnessed. I have seen remarkable feats performed by the prestidigitateur on the stage; but they were clumsy compared with this. I thought it was nationalism I was looking at. But, “presto, change!” I look again, and the only thing visible is the question as to “whether great private corporations shall control legislatures and city councils, and charge their own unquestioned prices for such public necessities as light and transit.” I was looking for the “garden of Eden,” the “kingdom of heaven,” the “promised land,” or, at the very least, the fulfilment of Mr. Edward Bellamy’s dream of a Boston with poverty gone and everybody happy, and lo! I am put off with economical electric lights and cheaper street cars! To be sure, these latter are not to be despised; but when one, like More’s “Peri at the Gate,” has been looking into heaven, even free street lights and street cars are a disappointment!

But however disappointed we may be, let us turn and seriously face the situation. The Rev. Francis Bellamy is not at all sure that he is in favor of his brother’s kind of nationalism. And yet, the kind and method were the only peculiar and distinctive things in his brother’s book. Dreams are old and common; but when this book appeared, people shouted “Eureka! We have found the way. This is the fulfilment of our dreams!” Now we are told, on authority, that it is not. And we are just where we were before.

People may suffer from a vague discontent for any number of years, while yet they do no more than complain and wish they were more comfortable. So, for example, the farmers have been doing. But, so long as they go no further, there is no definite “cause” either to uphold or oppose. But, when they call a national convention and construct a platform, announcing definite aims and methods, then there is something to talk about. Now, a man is either for or against “The Farmers’ Alliance.” Of course, he may be profoundly interested in the farmers’ welfare, and yet oppose their aims and methods, because he does not believe that real help can come in the way that they, at present, propose. But, until some plan is proposed, there can hardly be said to be any farmers’ movement at all.

So of nationalism. It does not consist in an indefinite confession that the industrial condition of the world is not all that one could wish, and an equally indefinite dream, or hope, or trust in evolution. If that be nationalism, then, of course, we are all nationalists. The nationalist clubs have platforms, declarations of principles, statements of aims and methods. The one only value of Mr. Edward Bellamy’s book—beyond mere entertainment—was in its clear statement of an end to be reached in certain definite ways. Take this feature away, and there is no nationalism left to even talk about.

As there are many different types of socialism, so, of course, there may be many different kinds of nationalism. But there must be some kind, if the matter is to be intelligently discussed. But the Rev. Francis Bellamy declines to be held to the scheme of Mr. Edward Bellamy; and he does not give us any other in its place. He says he wants nothing “that is not an orderly development”; nationalism is “only a prophecy”; it is “too distant to be certainly detailed”; “we may be inspired by it,” but nobody can yet tell whether we shall want it or not; its sudden coming would be “a deplorable disaster,” etc., etc.

Now I submit to the candid reader as to whether this sort of thing is not too nebulous and tenuous for the uninitiated mind to discuss. “An orderly development”—but of nobody knows what nor in what direction—“a prophesy,” an intangible “inspiration”; these may be very fine, but where are we, and what are we talking about? For all I know, up to the present time, I may be in cordial agreement with the Rev. Francis Bellamy’s state of mind—if only I could find out what it is. He does not agree with his brother; nor do I. So far we are in accord. But I cannot tell whether I can take the next step with him, until he tells me what the next step is. But he does not even suggest a definite end, nor hint one definite method. I am heartily with him in being in favor of the millennium; but the practical question is,—which way?

The only definite thing he does suggest is that, as the process of natural evolution goes on, men will be competent to decide what they want; and if they do not want any particular thing, they will not have it. This is all very harmless; but it is so commonplace a truism that it is hardly worth while to get excited over it.

But while he does not define himself, nor tell us what it is, nor how it is to be come at, it is plain, all the way through, that he is a believer in “nationalistic socialism.” Now, we cannot indict a man for cherishing hopes, or for encouraging them in others. But, in the case of the negroes, at the close of the war, it was a real evil for them to be expecting “a mule and forty acres of land” from the government; for it stood in the way of real effort in practical directions. So, while a nobler ideal is of incalculable benefit to a people, it is a real evil for them to be indulging in impractical dreams. They waste effort and divert power from practical ends, and result in that kind of disappointment that discourages the heart and unnerves the arm. Those, then, who talk of nationalism as a solution of our troubles, ought to tell us just what they are after, and what methods they propose. Then we can find out whether the plans will work or not. Otherwise time, enthusiasm, and effort may all be wasted.

But the only definite end this article hints at is the destruction of those monopolies that make light and transportation dear. But it is conceivable that this may be done without a resort to nationalistic socialism. And this, which he says is the first step, may be a step in any one of several different directions. And if what he is after is to come only as the result of a natural evolution, when everybody wants it, and not as the result of a social catastrophe, then it would seem to be difficult to tell the difference between it and individualism. “The rounded development of the greatest number of individuals,” he himself sets forth as the motive and end of his kind of nationalism. Now if somebody is going to make me take on a “sounder development,” that is one thing, but if everybody is only going to let me do it, that is quite another thing. Mark Twain’s “Buck Fanshaw” was going to have peace, if he had to “lick every galoot in town” to get it. This may well stand for Edward Bellamy’s military nationalism. But if we are only going to have peace when everybody wants it, and will behave himself, why this seems like the Rev. Francis Bellamy’s nationalism, with the “military” left out. And this, I say, looks to me very much like the kind of individualism which I believe in.

I pass by, completely, the philosophical discussion as to what constitutes “a nation.” This I do, because it does not seem to me relevant to the matter in hand. If my individual liberty is interfered with, I cannot see that it helps me much to reflect that a nation, or “the nation,” is not a “sand-heap,” but is “an organic being.” The oppression is the matter; and I had as lief be oppressed by a sand-heap as by an organic being. What I object to is being oppressed by either of them. And, whatever may be in the future, when men get to be something different from what they are, so far in the history of the world it has been true that all kinds of governments have oppressed the individual. And, so far, the only safety of the individual has been such guarantees of personal rights and liberties as have limited the governmental power. And until some one can give the world assurance that human nature is to be transformed, it will be just as well to maintain the guarantees, instead of putting still more power into the hands of the government—whether it be called one thing or another. While even one wolf is abroad, the wise shepherd will not get rid of his dog.

But, while the Rev. Francis Bellamy has “come down,” to the extent of virtually giving up any kind of nationalism definite enough to fight about, he nevertheless goes on with his arguments against the editor’s positions just as though nothing at all had happened. He stands up for “nationalistic socialism” as though it were something clearly in mind. And he argues at length that the state of things covered by this term will not be open to such dangers as have been found to exist under all other forms of government. Either human nature is to be changed—though he does not tell us how—or there is to be some charm in “nationalistic socialism” that is to change the nature of “politics,” disarm prejudice, make philistinism broad-minded, and turn bigotry into tolerance. Wonderful is the power of my particular panacea!

Neither of the brothers Bellamy expect or propose any sudden change in human nature. “Looking Backward” plainly and positively disclaims any such expectation. So we are not only at liberty to deal with social forces and factors as they have been, and as we know them, but we are even compelled to do so. Let us, then, take up some of Mr. Flower’s points against nationalism, and see whether Mr. Bellamy has adequately met them.

Mr. Flower thinks that nationalism would mean governmentalism and paternalism—in the historic sense of those terms—raised to the highest degree; and that these are both bad things. Mr. Bellamy admits that they have been bad things in the past; but claims that something in nationalistic socialism is to change their nature. As, in the millennium, the lion is to “eat straw like the ox,” so, in this coming Edenic condition of affairs, the age-long oppressors of the individual are to lose their man-eating proclivities. The world is open to conviction on this point; but it will take more than words to produce the result. When we see a lion eating grass, while the sheep play about his feet, we will believe in his conversion. For—let the reader take earnest heed—it is not the conscious evil in men that has been oftenest the oppressor of their fellows; almost always the plea for it has been the general good. Church and State both have set this propensity down among the great cardinal virtues. As Saul of Tarsus thought he was doing God service when he persecuted the early Church, so the Church herself sang Te Deums over St. Bartholomew, and believed verily that the groans of the Inquisition and the fires of her autos de fé were for the glory of God and the good of man.

The curse of the whole business is just here—that a set of men should fancy that they know better what their brothers ought to think and do than the brothers themselves know. Mr. Bellamy himself lets out, in a most curious way, his own advanced (?) idea of “toleration.” By the way, I would like to know how it happens to be any of his business, for example, to “tolerate” me. Who sets him, or anybody else, up on high to look down with “toleration” on other people?

But let us note his idea of “toleration.” He says, with great emphasis, “A man may prove to me by inductive data, reaching uninterruptedly over ten thousand years”—I did not know he was so old—“that my own nature is intolerant; he may even corroborate his proof by pointing to my occasional acts of thoughtless disregard for another’s opinion; yet all this array does not overwhelm me, for I know [Italics mine] that I am not intolerant.” This superlative confidence in his own goodness makes me think of the congressman of whom it was said, “He is the most distinguished man in Washington. I know he is, for he admits it himself.”

But a little later on creeps out an indication, in the light of which we have a right to interpret this claim. Mr. Flower, in his editorial, had shown how a Christian Scientist had been arrested in Iowa for this offence. In the words of the indictment, “She had practised a cure on one Mrs. George B. Freeman.” After the physicians had pronounced the case hopeless, and had given her up, this criminal woman had actually dared to “cure” her. The heinousness of the offence was admitted. It was not, in the ordinary sense, malpractice; no medicine had been given, no pain was inflicted, no harm done. But she had been presumptuous enough to “cure,” and not after the “regular,” the orthodox way. Now the Rev. Francis Bellamy shows his “tolerance” in regard to this crucial case, by saying, “But it is certainly true that the State has the right to prevent malpractice—a right none of us would wish renounced.” Just what this has to do with an instance where the only malpractice even charged was that she “had practised a cure,” after all the physicians had given her up, is not very plain to the worldly minded. But he goes on,—“And as soon as there are sufficient data to convince an intelligent (sic) public opinion that the theory, with its perilous repudiation of all medical skill, is not fatal to human life, it will receive an ungrudged status.”

“Here’s richness,” as Mr. Squeers would say. Mr. Bellamy’s “tolerance” then is limited carefully to what has an accepted “status” as judged by “public opinion.” It begins now to be plain as to what “tolerance” is to be in the millennial era of nationalism.

But there is one more hint in Mr. Bellamy’s article, without which this new and improved definition of tolerance would not be complete. He says, “It is hard to discover what individualism is surrendered except bumptiousness.” But who is to decide what is “bumptiousness”? Why, “an intelligent public opinion,” of course. And who is to settle as to what is “an intelligent public opinion,” that has the right to put down “bumptiousness”? Why, the “intelligent” public, of course. So it comes back always to this,—we, the ruling majority, are intelligent, and we have the right to decide as to what shall be and shall not be permitted.

But now to go back a moment to a point that must not be lost sight of; for it involves the whole issue between personal freedom and tyranny, whether of a part of the people or all of them. He says, “as soon as there are sufficient data to convince an intelligent public opinion, etc., etc.” But just how is this “data” to be accumulated, so long as anybody who dares to have a new idea is to be arrested and imprisoned? The very most fatal objection to this universal supervision and control of all individual action by the governing power, which nationalism contemplates and which is of its very essence, is that it would become the tyranny of mediocrity, and would stand in the way of growth.

Two forces, at work freely, are necessary to evolution: heredity and the tendency to vary. The one conserves all the valuable attainments of the past; and the other, like the new sprouts and twigs on a growing tree, has in it all the promise of the future. Such a control of life as nationalism contemplates would suppress the new twigs as “bumptiousness,” or would—while breaking them off as fast as they appeared—ask them to accumulate “sufficient data to convince an intelligent public opinion.”

The “intelligent public opinion” of Europe thought Copernicus, and Bruno, and Galileo, and Luther very bumptious sorts of persons. With “an intelligent public opinion,” such as existed in England and America thirty years ago, on the subject of the origin of species, what would have become of Darwin—provided that, at that time, the governing power had assumed and exercised the right to put him to some “useful” occupation, or to suppress ideas popularly believed to be dangerous?

The plain fact of the matter is, that all the persecutions of the past have grown out of just this idea, which Mr. Bellamy endorses, that an “intelligent public opinion” has the right to tell certain individuals what they shall believe and teach. And all the growth of human civilization thus far has been in the direction of the rise of the individual as over against the claim of the majority to control. And there is no safety for the individual, and no sure and swift promise of human advance, until “intelligent public opinion” is taught to mind its own business.

While, then, Mr. Bellamy denies that there is any danger of “governmentalism” or “paternalism” under nationalistic control, he himself admits and defends the principle. This he does while loudly claiming to be tolerant. What, then, may we expect on the part of the great mass of the people whose equal (?) tolerance he does not undertake to guarantee? Is it just possible that his nationalism, which is not of the military type even, is already manifesting some symptoms of the incipient disease?

Five cases of the tyranny of the majority, that had been adduced by Mr. Flower, his antagonist claims to deal with. I have already touched on his treatment of Case II., that of the Christian Scientist. His treatment of only one other is significant enough to call for notice on my part. Case V. is that of one Powell of Pennsylvania. This man had put a large sum of money into the business of manufacturing oleomargarine. He had complied with all the conditions of the law. His product was what it claimed to be, and was stamped as such. Nobody was deceived or injured. But a later legislature—as if there were not already crimes enough in existence—declares this manufacture a crime. The “intelligent public” majority calmly robs him of his property and ruins him, and feels no sort of compunction in the matter. One year it encourages him to start a business; the next it ruins him for starting it.