CHAPTER IX.
IN WHICH THE NIHILIST, THE DEMOCRAT, AND THE PROFESSOR OFFER A SUGGESTION TO THE BISHOP.
'Were it not better not to be!'
Tennyson: The Two Voices.
'Si tu veux', je te tuerais ici tout franc, en sorte que tu rien sentiras rien, et m'en croy, car j'en ay bien tué d'autres qui s'en sont bien trouvez'
Pantagruel, ii. xiv.
'Look there!' said the Owl one day. 'There is a bishop, one of the higher priests of St. George.'
He was a beautiful bishop, in his mitre, canonicals, and crozier, all complete—so the Owl said. It strikes one as a novelty for bishops to wear their rochettes and mitres when they go out walking in Richmond Park; but one is forced to believe the Owl, he has such a truthful way with him, like George Washington. By the way, what scope George Washington had for telling lies, if he had wished it, after that incident of the cherry-tree, which gave everyone such a high opinion of his veracity!
The Bishop advanced slowly into full view, and then drew up before a tree. He did not lean against the tree, for fear of spoiling his splendours, but he drew up before it, and began to ponder, with a mild, benevolent expression on his fine features. At the same time, two hundred yards away, Queen Mab caught sight of the Democrat, walking very fast, a little out of breath, and looking for the Bishop. He wanted to explain to him the principles of Church and State, and to talk things over in a friendly way. The Democrat had great faith in talking things over, spite of his failure to convince the Aristocrat; he never really doubted that if he only harangued against obstacles long enough they would ultimately disappear. The Bishop, for instance, would willingly rush into nonentity, if once he could be brought to look at his duty in that light, and the Democrat was eager to begin to put it before him in that light immediately. But while he was still looking earnestly for his expected proselyte, someone else advanced with a similar purpose—a tall, gentlemanly individual, with a pleasing exterior, spotless linen cuffs, and a black bag. The Owl uttered a cry of horror.
'Come away!' he exclaimed. 'It is a Nihilist, a dynamiter!'
But Queen Mab held her ground, or rather her branch. She was a courageous fairy, and though she turned a shade paler she spoke resolutely:
'No!' she said. 'I mean to stay and see what he does with it. You may go.'
But the Owl was either too chivalrous to desert her, or he was paralysed with terror.
'Dynamite strikes downwards,' the fairy heard him murmur with chattering beak, and that was all he could say. Meanwhile the Nihilist went up to the Bishop.
'Excuse me!' he murmured politely, and knelt down. The Bishop stretched out his hands absently, in an attitude of blessing; but the Nihilist did not look up. He took an American cloth parcel from the black bag and laid it at the Bishop's feet. Then, gradually withdrawing, he began to lay the train.
'He is going to blow him up!' whispered Mab, shuddering. But the Bishop, absorbed in rapt contemplation, heard and saw nothing, till the Democrat, breaking rudely through some bushes and into his reverie, roused him effectually. The Democrat was not a person of whose neighbourhood one could remain unconscious.
'Ah!' he exclaimed, while the Bishop looked upon him with an air of mild disapprobation. 'I have found you at last! I was anxious to discuss with you—but what is this?'
For the more observant Democrat had caught sight of the cloth parcel.
'What is this?' he repeated suspiciously.
'I really don't know,' said the Bishop mildly, putting on his spectacles and gazing down. 'I am a little shortsighted, you know. It is the size of the quarto edition of—'
'There!' interrupted the Democrat, who had caught a glimpse of the Nihilist's shadowy figure. He darted after it, while the Bishop, a little perturbed, moved slowly in the same direction.
'Don't move,' said the Nihilist, raising an abstracted face. 'I will only be a moment. Just step back there, will you?' and he pointed towards the parcel with one hand, while the other still scattered the train.
'What are you doing?' cried the Democrat, shaking him.
'Stop that!' said the Nihilist 'You had better not lay hands on me, or you mayn't like it. It is really inconsiderate,' he continued, appealing to the Bishop in an injured voice. 'I am only going to blow you up, and you won't be quiet half a minute together. How can I blow you up properly, if you will keep walking about?'
'You are going to blow me up!' said the Bishop, awaking to the situation, and becoming as indignant as his gentle nature would allow him to be. 'Miserable man! What will you want to blow up next? I utterly discountenance it. Take your dynamite to the haunts of iniquity and atheism, if you will. Rather blow up Renan, and Dissenters, and the Rev. Mr. Cattell; but as for me, this is really carrying it too far!'
'Waal,' said the Nihilist, rising with a surprised stare, and in the astonishment of the moment betraying his nationality, 'I guess things air come to a pretty pass when a Bishop of the Church of England refooses to be blown up in the interests of hoomanity!'
He took up the American cloth parcel as he spoke and walked despondently away, musing over the lack of public spirit displayed by established orders in general and prelates in particular.
'I would cheerfully consent to be blown up any day,' he murmured pensively, 'in the interests of hoomanity; but it is not for the interests of hoomanity—'
'Why did you not arrest him?' said the Bishop reproachfully, when he was out of sight.
'He is the natural product of the present depraved state of Society and of the Legislature,' replied the Democrat, shaking his head, 'and therefore to be pitied rather than condemned. He should be accepted as a warning, a merciful token sent to all thrones, principalities and powers, reminding them of the error of their ways and of their latter end. And besides,' he continued unwillingly, 'he has a whole magazine of explosives on his person. If I had not been carried away by my indignation just now I should never have taken him by the collar. I did remonstrate with him once, on the strength of his political bias. I said, "Look at us, why can't you profit by our example? We don't wish to blow up, but gently to 'disintegrate. We are mild, but firm. We never express a wish for revolution, but for reform. We are as active as anyone in bringing about the Millennium, but we don't desire to be shot into it head foremost, like a projectile from one of your infernal machines. Dynamite, that last infirmity of noble minds, should only be resorted to when all other modes of conciliation have failed." And what do you think he replied? He smiled affably and offered me a box. "Thank you!" he said, "Take a torpedo?"'
'Dear me!' said the Bishop; 'he is really a terrible character. I have here some of his advertisements, sent to me the other day. Actually sent by post, to me, a Prelate of the Church of England. I saved them, intending to deliver a discourse upon the subject.'
He took a handful of papers from his pocket-book, and the Democrat perused them, while Queen Mab, invisible, looked over his shoulder.
'Home Comfort! Hints to Architects and Builders.
'In the construction of tenements, it is absolutely necessary, for the safety and convenience of the inmates, to place in the recess at the back of each fireplace a couple of Donovan's Patent Dynamite Fire Bricks, warranted. The advantages of this novel and most ingenious contrivance will be fully appreciated when, for the first time, the family circle gathers round the cheerful blaze.'
'To Clergymen.
'For a pure religious light, suitable to the Liturgy of the Church of England, try Donovan's Wax Tapers for Church Illumination. Two of these, placed in the sconces, will give more light than twenty ordinary candles, and will also impart vigour and fervency of tone to the whole of the proceedings. Donovan and Co. are so confident of the superiority of their manufactures that they are willing to refund costs, on receiving the written attestation of the Bishop of the diocese that the article has proved unsuitable. Try them; you can have no idea of the effects.'
'Directors of Railway Companies.
'Take care to have carriages illuminated with Donovan's Patent Safety Lamps. These exert a bracing and salutary influence, not only on the atmosphere and the spirits of the passengers, but on the tunnel walls themselves, which are invariably found, after the passage through them of a train lighted by Donovan's Patent Safety Lamps, completely prostrate with astonishment at the unparalleled effects of the same, to the immense convenience of traffic and judicious prevention of accidents.'
There were several more advertisements, similar in tone and of attractive appearance, which the Democrat perused with interest.
'What could possess the fellow to send all these to you?' he exclaimed when he had finished. 'I always said he pushed the thing to an extreme. He has got dynamite on the brain: he will go off himself some day if he doesn't take care, like a new infernal machine.'
'I wish he would!' said the Bishop hastily; and then correcting himself, 'I was about to say, "Whatever is, is best."'
'Oh, stow that!' exclaimed the Democrat. 'I mean,' he added apologetically, on observing the Bishop's startled glance, 'that, of course, that sounds very well, and it is a pretty thing to say, but everybody knows it isn't true. I will undertake to prove to you, if you will allow me'—here the Bishop's face gathered a shade of melancholy—'that, in fact, there never was a more outrageous falsehood on the earth. As for the Nihilist, naturally we should be thankful to get rid of him, either by explosion or otherwise; but he is such a dangerous fellow to tackle. The fact is, one hardly dare shake hands with him, for fear of being blown into the middle of next week, and then one couldn't toil for the benefit of humanity.'
'Act, act in the living Present,' murmured the Bishop.
'Just so,' said his companion approvingly. 'And you can't act in the living Present when you are in the middle of next week.'
'And yet, you know,' said the Bishop, with a glimpse before him of some possible advantage in the argument, 'I have often fancied that you yourself—'
He paused judiciously.
'Oh no!' returned the Democrat promptly, 'we wouldn't do it on any account. I assure you that our motives are quite unimpeachable.'
'Oh!' said the Bishop. 'And about the House of Lords, for example? Being a Spiritual Peer oneself, you see, one naturally takes an interest—limited.'
'Well, as for that,' said the Democrat, 'it would really be such an excellent thing for you in all respects to be abolished, that you would never make any objection, would you now? We have your welfare so deeply at heart, and long study of your characteristics has convinced us that a course of judicious abolition would be your salvation, temporal, spiritual—and eternal.'
'I say!' exclaimed the Bishop, 'isn't that putting it rather strong? To a Bishop, you know.'
'Ah,' said his companion encouragingly, 'all that feeling will pass away. The full beauty of true Democracy is not, I admit, at first wholly apparent to the Conservative mind; but once afford the requisite culture, and it unfolds new attractions every day. Believe me, we are acting in this matter solely, or almost solely, with a view to your ultimate benefit. We are not acting for ourselves—ourselves is a secondary consideration. But your true fife, as Goethe so beautifully says, probably with an intentional reference to bishops and noble lords, must begin with renunciation of yourself. Till you have once been abolished you can never know how nice it is.
"The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower,"'
he added, quoting the words of the hymn-book, with the firm impression that they were from some Secularist publication.
'And is it necessary?' said the Bishop somewhat helplessly.
'Absolutely necessary,' replied the Democrat.
'I don't know about that,' said a voice behind them, and Queen Mab started, seeing the Professor. 'But depend upon it, the fittest will survive. I think, myself, that it is quite time you were gone; but some types die out very slowly, especially the lower types; and you may be said, as regards freedom of intellect and the march of Science, to be a low type—in fact, a relic of barbarism. There can be no doubt that, in the economy of Nature, bishops are an unnecessary organ, merely transmitted by inheritance in the national organism, and that in the course of time they will become atrophied and degenerate out of existence. When that time comes you must be content to pass into oblivion. Study Palæontology.' Now he pronounced it Paleyon-tology, not having had a classical education. 'Think of the pterodactyles, who passed away before the end of the Mesozoic ages, and never have appeared again. What, in the eternal nature of things, are bishops more than pterodactyles?'
'I wonder,' interrupted the Bishop severely, 'that you dare to speak of your pernicious teachings under the name of Paleyontology, as if the First Principles of that revered divine, whose loss we all deplore, were ever anything like that!'
The Professor only glared, and was going on, but the Democrat stopped him, by remarking, in a loud and exasperatingly complacent voice:
'You are quite correct. Only upon the wreck of the old order of existence can arise the New Democracy.'
'Can you never stop talking about yourself?' snapped the Professor testily. 'One would think, to hear you, that Democracy was the goal of everything.'
'So it is,' said the Democrat.
'Not a bit of it. You and your democracies are only a fleeting phase, an infinitesimal fraction of the aeons to be represented, perhaps, in some geological record of the future, by a mere insignificant conglomerate of dust and bones, and ballot-boxes, and letters in the Spectator and other articles characteristic of this especial period. What a dream of Science that, interstellary communication established, some being of knowledge and capacities as infinitely excelling our own as our faculties excel those of the lowly monad, wandering on this terrestrial globe, and culling from the imperfect archives of these bygone years a corkscrew, an opera-glass, or, perchance, a pot of long since petrified marmalade, preserved intact by some protecting incrustation of stalagmite from the ravages of time, may dart a penetrating gleam of intelligence through the dark abysses of innumerable ages, and exclaim: "This clay, upon which I gaze, was of the human period. This coin, this meerschaum, this china shepherdess, this prayer-book with gilt edges, this Sporting Times, were the inseparable companions of a fossil species of Englishmen who once colonised this globe, and minute traces of whom have been found in its most widely separated regions. Alas that the action of marine and subaerial denuding agents has deprived us of an opportunity for closer examination of the habits and idiosyncrasies of this interesting fossil. Into such small compass are compressed the pride and wealth of nations and of centuries. O genus humanum! O tempora! O mores!" Thus will he muse. No democrat! no stump orator will be that Being of the Future, nor anything of human mould. One's imagination may well revel in the thought that Evolution, mighty to conceive and to perform, lias not yet completed her work. What are vertebrates? Even these are transient. But four classes of vertebrates—only four!' shouted the Professor in his enthusiasm, wholly forgetting the Democrat, and the Bishop, who was gazing at him with a look of blank horror on his venerable countenance. 'Why, it is preposterous, it is inconceivable that we should stop at four!—fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals! Where is the fifth! Cannot Natural Selection, Struggle for Existence, Variability and Survival of the Fittest, between them, furnish a fifth class of vertebrates? I demand it in the name of Science and of Evolution. We have been human long enough. There we are, ever since the Age of Stone, pinned down to one particular tribe of mammals. Ah, when shall we begin to move on again? Is not this a hope beyond the niggardly aspirations of a purblind democrat?'
'What will the future reality be? I care not; but progress demands a new and conquering organism. For my part, I see no reason why we should not immediately leave the vertebrates. That would be something like a New Departure.'
Here the professor stopped suddenly, becoming aware of the eyes of the Democrat, which were fixed on him with a mixture of contempt and curiosity.
'I don't understand all that,' he said in an exasperating tone. 'It is very elevating, I daresay, but what I want is Universal Suffrage. There is something tangible for you. When we get that, there will be time to think about the future, and indeed, we shall have it in our own hands, and can furnish any kind we like, by Ballot. Ballot is better than Natural Selection. Natural Selection is all very well; but it does not know what we want. We do.'
'Science may be allowed her dreams as well as Theology,' said the Professor rather shamefacedly.
'But you can't bring about a new sub-kingdom, or the kingdom of heaven either, by Act of Parliament.'
'Why not?' returned the Democrat confidently. 'It is only to get a majority; and there you are, you know!'
'My brethren,' said the Bishop, inspired thereto, as the Owl observed, by reflex action, 'Perfection is not of this world!'
'It will be though,' replied the Democrat cheerfully,' before we have done with it. Bless you, Perfection will be upon you before you have time to turn round! That is the beauty of the New Democracy. You have merely to be abolished, and then we get a majority, and then, you know, there we are!'
'What will you do with the minority?' said the Professor grumpily. 'How about Proportional Representation?'
'Oh, the minority?' said the Democrat. 'Well, it will be all right—you will see how right it will be if you give us a majority. We have everybody's interests at heart—deeply at heart!' he added hopefully. 'We first pass a Bill for the manufacture (National Monopoly) of all the cardinal virtues at reduced prices—may be ordered direct from the Company, carriage paid; and then a Bill for the repression of all the Cardinal Crimes, which the Company is also willing to buy up at market value, for exportation—and then, you see, there we are!'
'Where are you?' said the Professor sharply.
'Where?' replied the Democrat, looking puzzled for a moment, but soon recovering himself triumphantly. 'Where? oh, we are there, you know. There we are!'
'Humph!' ejaculated the Professor, turning on his heel. The Bishop turned away also, saying that he had an engagement, and the Democrat followed him, talking very fast and bringing forward arguments. When they reached the gate there was a sad, perplexed look upon the Bishop's face, and finally shaking off his companion by an effort of the will, he entered the nearest churchyard and began to meditate upon mortality. The Democrat, observing in an acrid voice that he had something better to do with mortality than to meditate upon it, turned away reluctantly from the gate, and began to compose a popular ode, which had tremendous success, and of which the rhymes were dubious but the sentiments unimpeachable. Meanwhile, Queen Mab and the Owl, who had followed un-perceived, perched upon the tower of the church, and surveyed the landscape and the Bishop, who, a venerable appropriate figure in his vestments, had turned naturally to the east, and was standing by a marble cross.
'What a pleasant place!' said Mab. 'The dead must rest quietly here.'
'I am not sure that they don't keep up class distinctions,' said the Owl rather misanthropically. 'They would if they could. But, on the whole, I prefer to think that this place is the goal of the Democrat, where Equality reigns indeed. If so, it will be consoling to him, for I am afraid he will never get equality in life. Death, at present, has the monopoly. Mr. Mallock thinks that Social Equality, if it ever came to pass, would be ruinous to the welfare of the nation; but happily we are in no immediate danger of it. Inequality, he says, is the condition of Progress, and if it is only Inequality that is wanted, Progress ought to be making rapid strides. Oh yes, we have Social Inequality enough to carry us on at the rate of a mile a minute. It would be interesting, would it not, to know in what direction we are progressing—though, of course, the Progress is the chief thing—from good to better or from bad to worse?'
'Very interesting,' said Queen Mab. 'I mean to think that we are progressing from good to better. But do you know that you are a very dismal bird? Are things really as bad as you say they are?'
'Perhaps I am cynical,' replied the Owl. 'The kingfisher says so. The kingfisher is an optimist, and he told me I thought it was clever to be cynical; but that was when we had a few words one day. It is from living in a belfry, doubtless, that I have contracted a habit of looking at things on the dark side; but when one has made allowance for the belfry, the world is not so bad after all. Of course animals can't be expected to know what it means; they are not social philosophers, and men say so many different things. Some think the universe is under a dual control, and some that it is altogether a blunder—a clock running down and the key lost I don't know about that, I am only a bird; but if it is a failure, it is a glorious failure. Sometimes, indeed, the theologians call life a howling wilderness; but that is in comparison with the next world. For they are immortal.'
'I am immortal too,' said Queen Mab proudly.
'So you are,' returned the Owl. 'I was forgetting. I'm not,' he added rather doubtfully. 'But I hope you will enjoy it.'
'It is my intention,' said Queen Mab.
The Bishop, from whose face the look of perplexity had departed, leaving only his old serene, benevolent expression, turned as the bell chimed out the hour, and walked slowly towards the gate. The east was growing grey towards sunset, the east that lent the light wherein he lived, for he was a man of a gentle heart. Far off, in the town, a million lamps were beginning to burn. Gas lamps, and electric, and matches that struck only on the box, and not always on that. But the face of the Bishop shone with another radiance, and a lustre not of this world.