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 THE NEW REPUBLIC 
 
 VOL. L
 
 NEW NOVELS AT ALL THE LIBRARIES. 
 
 3 vols, crown 8vo. 
 
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 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE PIAZZA OF ST. 
 PETER, and other Stories. By T. Adolphus Trolloie. 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
 
 THE NEW REPUBLIC; 
 
 OR, 
 CULTURE, FAITH, AND PHILOSOPHY IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE. 
 
 lidvra yeXcoy KCii navra kovis koI ndvra to /i,r;5e'j/, 
 Yidvra yap e^ dXdycoi' icrri ra yiyvoyieva. 
 
 Greek Anthology. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES.- VOL. I. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS. PICCADILLY, 
 
 1877. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 {The New Republic n<as originally published in Belgravia, but in oh 
 incomplete and somewhat fragmentary condition, which gave it the appear- 
 ance rather of a series of papers than of a single connected work. 
 
 It is now, with complete revision, restored to its original form, -which 
 differs materially from that which it had for a time to assume. ""^
 
 
 TO 
 
 'VIOLET l-ANL 
 
 AUTHORESS OF 
 ANTHONY BABINGTON ' ' THE QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES ETC. 
 
 BY HER SINCERE FRIEND 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 560002
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 ^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 iOWARDS the close of last July, 
 when the London season was fast 
 dying of the dust, Otho Laurence 
 had invited what the Morning Post called 
 ' a select circle of friends,' to spend a quiet 
 Sunday with him at his cool villa by the 
 sea. 
 
 This singular retreat was the work of 
 a very singular man, Otho Laurence's uncle, 
 who had squandered on it an immense 
 fortune, and had designed it as far as possible 
 to embody his own tastes and character 
 He was a member of a Tory family of some 
 note, and had near relations in both Houses of 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Parliament ; but he was himself possessed of 
 a deep, though quiet antipathy to the two 
 things generally most cherished by those of 
 his time and order, the ideas of Christianity 
 and Feudalism ; and he studiously kept 
 himself clear of all public life. Pride of 
 birth, indeed, he had in no small measure ; 
 but it was the pride of a Roman of the 
 Empire rather than of an Englishman ; a 
 pride which, instead of connecting him with 
 prince or people, made him shun the one as 
 a Csesar, and forget the other as slaves. All 
 his pleasures were those of a lettered 
 voluptuary, who would, as he himself said, 
 have been more in place under Augustus or 
 the Antonines ; and modern existence, under 
 most of its aspects, he affected to regard as 
 barbarous. Next to a bishop, the thing he 
 most disliked was a courtier ; next to a 
 courtier, a fox-hunting country gentleman. 
 But nothing in his life, perhaps, was so 
 characteristic of him as his leaving of it.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER I. 5 
 
 During his last hours he was soothed by a 
 pretty and somewhat educated housemaid, 
 whom he called Phyllis, and whom he made 
 sit by his bedside, and read aloud to him Gib- 
 bon's two chapters on Christianity. Phyllis 
 had just come to the celebrated excerpt 
 from Tertullian, in which that father con- 
 templates the future torments of the unbe- 
 lievers, when the parish clergyman, who had 
 been sent for by Mr. Laurence's widowed 
 sister-in-law, arrived to offer his services. 
 ' How shall I admire ' ^ — these were the words 
 that, read in a low sweet tone, first greeted 
 his ears when he was shown softly into the 
 sick chamber — ' how shall I admire, how 
 laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold 
 so many proud monarchs, so many fancied 
 gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of dark- 
 ness ; so many magistrates who persecuted 
 the name of the Lord, liquefying in a fiercer 
 
 ^ Vide Gibbon^ s Decline a7id Fall, chapter xv.
 
 6 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 fire than ever they kindled against the Chris- 
 tians ! ' The clergyman was at first much 
 reassured at hearing words so edifying ; but 
 when he turned to old Mr. Laurence, he was 
 dismayed to see on his pale face, no signs of 
 awe, but only a faint smile, full of sarcastic 
 humour. He therefore glanced at the book 
 that was lying on the girls lap, and dis- 
 covered to his horror the work of the infidel 
 historian. He was at first struck dumb ; 
 but, soon recovering himself, began to say 
 something suitable at once to his own pro- 
 fession and to the sick man's needs. Mr. 
 Laurence answered him with the greatest 
 courtesy, but with many thanks declined any 
 assistance from him ; saying wistfully that he 
 knew he had not long to live, and that his 
 one wish was that he could open his veins in 
 a bath, and so fade gently into death ; ' and 
 then,' he added, ' my soul, if I have one, 
 might perhaps be v/ith Petronius, and with 
 Seneca. And yet sleep would, I think, be
 
 BOOK L CHAPTER I. 7 
 
 better than even their company/ The poor 
 clergyman bade a hasty adieu, and Phyllis 
 resumed her reading. Mr. Laurence listened 
 to every word : the smile returned to his 
 lips that had for a moment left them, and 
 was still upon them when, half-an-hour after- 
 wards, he died, so quietly that Phyllis did 
 not perceive it, but continued her read- 
 ing for some time to ears that could hear 
 nothing. 
 
 All . his property he left to his nephew 
 Otho, including his splendid villa, which 
 was indeed, as it was meant to be, a type of 
 its builder. It was a house of pillars, porti- 
 coes, and statues, designed ambitiously in 
 what was meant to be a classical style ; and 
 though its splendours might not be all per- 
 haps in the best taste, nor even of the most 
 strictly Roman pattern, there was yet an air 
 about its meretricious stateliness by which the 
 days of the Empire were at once suggested 
 to one, a magnificence that would at any rate
 
 8 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 have pleased Trimalcio, though it might have 
 scandaHsed Horace.^ 
 
 ^ The present writer has so little skill in describing fine 
 houses, that he would have been here much at a loss, had 
 not a fashionable lady novelist who knew the one in question 
 — having been, in fact, the daughter of the housekeeper there 
 — come to his assistance, and dictated the following descrip- 
 tion to him ; which, owing to a slight difference in the style, 
 he has been unable to incorporate into the text. 'There 
 above the sea, and overlooking it, with the everlasting sea- 
 breeze in its Parian porticoes, stood the villa, of which a 
 Roman noble might have been proud — in which a Lucullus 
 might have feasted, or a Clodius wreathed the brows of 
 Aspasia with rose-petals. Laurence's Folly the simple 
 country folk termed it ; and folly perhaps it was, but a 
 splendid folly, and one of which none but a patrician, whose 
 blood beat blue from the heart to the taper finger-tips, could 
 have been ever guilty. Its lofty pillared halls with their 
 tessellated floors — work of cunning artists from over sea — 
 struck dumb with awed amazement such of the favoured 
 country squires as had occasional access to them, with their 
 buxom wives decked in their best apparel, and their daughters 
 arrayed in the flimsy fashion of the neighbouring town. Rare 
 exotics glowing in marble vases perfumed the air ; exquisite 
 frescoes on the wall caught the eye. Greek statues, in their 
 mute immortal loveliness, rested calmly upon their granite 
 plinths. In the libraries and drawing-rooms stood cabinets 
 full of priceless antiquities, any one of which would have 
 dowered an Earl's daughter. Jars and vases from China and 
 Japan, Roman hand-mirrors, in which Faustina had perhaps 
 surveyed her more than human loveliness, iridescent phials 
 of glass, in which Locusta had perhaps stored her poisons, 
 luxurious couches, some covered with purple velvet, some 
 with crimson, inlaid tables, paintings, marbles, bronzes by
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER L 9 
 
 Otho Laurence inherited with his uncle's 
 house something of the tastes and feeHngs of 
 which it was the embodiment. But, though 
 an epicure by training and by temper, he had 
 been open to other influences as well. At 
 one time of his life, he had, as it is ex- 
 pressed by some, experienced religion ; and 
 not religion only, but thought and specula- 
 immortal masters ' The lady, who had once helped to 
 
 make an inventory of the chief valuables in the house, went 
 on to repeat, in a more coloured form, as much of it as she 
 recollected. She then proceeded : ' Here, in this superb 
 retirement, dwelt Otho Laurence, the celebrated epicurean 
 of modern society — here seeking retirement from the caresses 
 of the selectest circles in London, in a yet selecter circle of 
 his own. All day long, through his gilded rooms, sounds of 
 soft music stole ; and dainty-footed Circassian girls, and 
 stealthy Odalisques, looking like strayed houris from 
 
 Paradise ' The author here interposed to tell her that 
 
 Otho Laurence was not at all such a man as she described, 
 nor in the least given to such company. She immediately, 
 seeing one road barred, started off with fresh alacrity on 
 another : ' Often on the broad terrace outside, during the long 
 summer evenings, haughty and titled groups of the English 
 Aristocracy watched the crimson after-glow die away over 
 the long horizon. Here it was that Ivo de Grantmesnil, a 
 scion of one of the proudest English houses, which had 
 
 thrice refused a peerage that had been laid at his feet ' 
 
 But our friend had automatically begun a novel, with which 
 we are not concerned at this moment.
 
 lo THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 tion also. Indeed, ever since he was twenty- 
 four, he had been troubled by a painful sense 
 that he ought to have some mission in life. 
 The only difficulty was that he could find 
 none that would suit him. He had consider- 
 able natural powers, and was in many ways 
 a remarkable man ; but, unhappily, one of 
 those who are remarkable because they do 
 not become famous, not because they do. 
 He was one of those of whom it is said till 
 they are thirty, that they will do something ; 
 till they are thirty-five, that they might do 
 something if they chose ; and after that, that 
 they might have done anything if they had 
 chosen. Laurence was as yet only three 
 years gone in the second stage, but such of 
 his friends as were ambitious for him feared 
 that three years more would find him landed 
 in the third. He, too, was beginning to 
 share this fear ; and, not being humble 
 enough to despair of himself, was by this 
 time taking to despair of his century. He
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER I. n 
 
 was thus hardly a happy man ; but, like 
 many unhappy men, he was capable of keen 
 enjoyments. Chief amongst these was so- 
 ciety in certain forms, especially a party in 
 his own house, such as that which he had 
 now assembled there. To this one in parti- 
 cular he looked forward with more than usual 
 pleasure, partly because of the peculiar 
 elements which he had contrived to combine 
 in it, but chiefly because amongst them was 
 to be his friend Robert Leslie, who had 
 been living abroad, and whom he had not 
 seen for two years. 
 
 Laurence's aunt. Lady Grace, helped to 
 receive the guests, who by dinner-time on 
 Saturday evening had all arrived. Robert 
 Leslie was the last. The dressing-bell had 
 just done ringing as he drove up to the 
 door, and the others had already gone up- 
 stairs ; but he found Laurence in the library, 
 sitting with his head on his hand, and a 
 pile of menu cards on the desk before him.
 
 12 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 The two friends met with much warmth, and 
 then examined each other s faces to see if 
 either had changed. 
 
 ' You told me you had been ill,' said 
 Laurence, having again looked at Leslie, 
 ' and I am afraid you don't seem quite well 
 yet.' 
 
 ' You forget,' said Leslie, whose laugh 
 was a little hollow, * that I was on the sea six 
 hours ago ; and, as you know, I am a 
 wretched sailor. But the worst of human 
 maladies are the most transient also — love 
 that is half despairing, and sea-sickness that 
 is quite so.' 
 
 * I congratulate you,' said Laurence, again 
 examining his friend's face, ' on your true 
 cynical manner. I often thought we might 
 have masters in cynicism just as we have 
 masters in singing. Perhaps I shall be able 
 to learn the art from you.' 
 
 * Oh ! ' said Leslie, * the theory is simple 
 enough. Find out, by a little suffering, what
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER I. 13 
 
 are the things you hold most sacred, and 
 most firmly believe in, and, whenever an 
 occasion offers, deny your faith. A cynic is 
 a kind of inverted confessor, perpetually 
 making enemies for the sake of what he 
 knows to be false.' 
 
 * Ah ! ' said Laurence, ' but I don't want 
 theory. I know what is sacred just as well 
 as you, and, when I am beast enough to be 
 quite out of tune with it, I have the good 
 sense to call it a phantom. But I don't 
 do this with sufficient energy. It is skill in 
 cynical practice I want — a lesson in the 
 pungent manner — the bitter tone ' 
 
 ' Then please not to take your lessons 
 from me,' said Leslie. ' Imitation may be 
 the sincerest flattery, but it is, of all, the most 
 irritating : and a cynic, as you are good 
 enough to call me, feels this especially. For 
 a cynic is the one preacher, remember, that 
 never wants to make converts. His aim is 
 to outrage, not to convince : to create enemies,
 
 14 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 not to conquer them. The peculiar charm 
 that his creed has for him, is his own pecu- 
 liarity in holding it. He is an acid that can 
 only fizz with an alkali, and he therefore hates 
 in others what he most admires in himself. 
 So if you hear me say a bitter thing, please 
 be good enough to brim over immediately 
 with the milk of human kindness. If I say 
 anything disrespectful about friendship, please 
 be good enough to look hurt ; and if I happen 
 to say — what is the chief part of the cynic's 
 stock-in-trade — that no woman was ever 
 sincere or faithful, I trust you have some 
 lady amongst your visitors who will look at 
 me with mournful eyes, and say to me, '' Ah, 
 if you did but know ! " ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Laurence, ' perhaps I have ; 
 but, talking of what people are to say, I have 
 something here about which I want you to 
 help me. You see these cards ; they are all 
 double. Now that second half is for some- 
 thing quite new, and of my own invention.
 
 BOOK L CHAPTER I. 
 
 IS 
 
 The cook has written his part already, so you 
 need not look so alarmed ; but he has only 
 provided for the tongue as a tasting instru- 
 ment ; I am going to provide for it as a talk- 
 ing one. In fact I am going to have a menu 
 for the conversation, and to this I shall make 
 everyone strictly adhere. For it has always 
 seemed absurd to me to be so careful about 
 what we put into our mouths, and to leave 
 chance to arrange what comes out of them ; 
 to be so particular as to the order of what we 
 eat, and to have no order at all in what we 
 talk about. This is the case especially in 
 parties like the present, where most of the 
 people know each other only a little, and if 
 left to themselves would never touch on the 
 topics that would make them best acquainted, 
 and best bring out their several personal 
 flavours. That is what I like to see conversa- 
 tion doing. I ought to have written these 
 menus before ; but I have been busy all day, 
 and, besides, I wanted you to help me. I
 
 i6 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 was just beginning without you when you 
 arrived, as I could wait no longer, but I have 
 put down nothing yet : indeed I could not fix 
 upon the first topic that is to correspond with 
 the soup — the first vernal breath of discussion 
 that is to open the buds of the shy and 
 strange souls. So come, now — what shall 
 we begin with ? What we want is something 
 that anyone can talk easily about, whether 
 he knows anything of it or not — something, 
 too, that may be treated in any way, either 
 with laughter, feeling, or even a little touch 
 of temper.' 
 
 ' Love,' suggested Leslie. 
 
 * That is too strong to begin with,' said 
 Laurence, ' and too real. Besides, introduced 
 in that way, it would be, I think, rather com- 
 mon and vulgar. No — the only thing that 
 suggested itself to me was religion.' 
 
 * Nothing could be better in some ways,' 
 said Leslie ; ' but might not that, too, be 
 rather strong meat for some ? I apprehend,
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER I. 17 
 
 like Bottom, that ''the ladies might be afeared 
 of the lion." I should suggest rather the 
 question, ''Are you High-church or Low- 
 church ? " There is something in that 
 which at once disarms reverence, and may 
 also just titillate the interests, the temper, 
 or the sense of humour. Quick,' he said, 
 taking one of the cards, ' and let us begin to 
 write.' 
 
 ' Stop,' said Laurence ; ' not so fast, let 
 me beg of you. Instead of religion, or any- 
 thing connected with it, we will have " What 
 is the Aim of Life ? " Is not this the thing 
 of things to suit us ? About what do we 
 know less or talk more ? There is a Sphinx 
 in each of our souls that is always asking us 
 this riddle ; and when we are lazy or disap- 
 pointed, we all of us lounge up to her, and 
 make languid guesses. So about this we 
 shall all of us have plenty to say, and can say 
 it in any way we like, flippant, serious, or 
 sentimental. Think, too, how many avenues 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 l8 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 of thought and feeling it opens up ! Evidently 
 the **Aim of Life" is the thing to begin 
 with.' 
 
 Leslie assented ; and before many minutes 
 they had made the menu complete. 
 
 The 'Aim of Life ' was to be followed by 
 * Town and Country/ which was designed 
 to Introduce a discussion as to where the 
 Aim of Life was to be best attained. After 
 this, by an easy transition, came ' Society ; ' 
 next by way of entries, ' Art and Literature,* 
 ' Love and Money,' ' Riches and Civilisa- 
 tion ; ' then ' The Present,' as something solid 
 and satisfying ; and lastly, a light superfluity 
 to dally with, brightly coloured and unsub- 
 stantial, with the entremets came ' The 
 Future.' 
 
 * And who is here,' said Leslie, as they 
 were ending their labours, * to enjoy this feast 
 of reason ? ' 
 
 * I will tell you,' said Laurence. ' In the 
 first place, there is Lady Ambrose, a woman
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER I. 19 
 
 of a very old but poor family, who has 
 married a modern M.P. with more than a 
 million of money. She is very particular 
 about knowing the right people, and has 
 lovely, large grey eyes. Then there is Miss 
 Merton, a Roman Catholic young lady, the 
 daughter of old Sir Ascot Merton, the horse- 
 racing evangelical. I knew her well five 
 years ago, but had not seen her since her 
 conversion, till to-day. Then we have Dr. 
 Jenkinson, the great Broad-church divine who 
 thinks that Christianity is not dead, but 
 changed by himself and his followers in the 
 twinkling of an eye.' 
 
 * I met Dr. Jenkinson,' said Leslie, 'just 
 before I went abroad, at a great dinner given 
 by Baron Isaacs, in honour of his horse hav- 
 ing won the Derby. Well — and who else is 
 there ? ' 
 
 * Two celebrated members of the Royal 
 Society,' said Laurence ; ' no less persons 
 
 c 2
 
 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 than But, good gracious ! it is time we 
 
 were upstairs dressing. Come along directly, 
 and I will explain the other people to you 
 before dinner.'
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 T was half-past eight, and the party- 
 were fast assembling in the twilight 
 drawing-room. Leslie was loung- 
 ing in one of the windows, by a large stand of 
 flowers and broad-leaved plants, and was 
 studying the company with considerable 
 interest. His first impression was of little 
 more than of a number of men's dark coats 
 and white shirt-fronts, tables, couches, and 
 gilded chairs, and the pleasant many-coloured 
 glimmerings of female apparel. But before 
 long he had observed more minutely. There 
 were men who he instinctively felt were 
 celebrities, discoursing to groups of ladies ;
 
 22 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 there were ladies who he at once saw 
 were attractive, being discoursed to by 
 groups of men. He very soon detected 
 Lady Ambrose, a fine handsome woman of 
 perhaps thirty, with the large grey eyes of 
 which Laurence had spoken, and a very 
 clear complexion. Leslie was much prepos- 
 sessed by her frank manner, and by her 
 charming voice, as she was talking with some 
 animation to a tall distinguished-looking 
 young man, whose fine features, keen earnest 
 glance and thoughtful expression prepos- 
 sessed him still more. Forming a third in 
 this group, dropping in a word or two at 
 intervals, he recognised the celebrated Dr. 
 Jenkinson — still full of vigour, though his 
 hair was silver — the sharp and restless 
 sparkle of whose eyes, strangely joined with 
 the most benevolent of smiles, Leslie remem- 
 bered to have noticed at Baron Isaac's 
 festival. He had just identified Lady 
 Ambrose and the Doctor, when Laurence
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER II. 23 
 
 came up to him in the window, and began to 
 tell him who was who. 
 
 * Dr. Jenkinson is the only one I know, 
 said Leslie, ' and, naturally enough, he forgets 
 me.' 
 
 * Well,' said Laurence, * that man by 
 himself, turning over the books on the table 
 — the man with the black whiskers, spectacles 
 and bushy eyebrows — is Mr. Storks of the 
 Royal Society, who is great on the physical 
 basis of life, and the imaginative basis of 
 God. The man with long locks in the 
 window, explaining a microscope in so eager 
 a way to that dark-haired girl, is Professor 
 Stockton — of the Royal Society also ; and 
 member and president of many Societies 
 more. The girl — child, rather, I ought to 
 call her — that he is talking to, is Lady Violet 
 Gresham — my second cousin. You see my 
 aunt, the old lady with grey curls, on the 
 ottoman near the fire-place ? Well — the 
 supercilious-looking man, talking rather
 
 24 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 loudly and rather slowly to her about the 
 dust in London, is Mr. Luke, the great critic 
 and apostle of culture. That, too, is another 
 critic close by him — the pale creature, with 
 large moustache, looking out of the window 
 at the sunset. He is Mr. Rose, the pre- 
 Raphaelite. He always speaks in an under- 
 tone, and his two topics are self-indulgence 
 and art. The young man there with Lady 
 Ambrose and Dr. Jenkinson, is Lord Allen. 
 He is only two or three and twenty ; still, 
 had you been in England lately, you would 
 often have heard his name. He has come 
 early into an immense property, and he yet 
 is conscious that he has duties in life. But,' 
 said Laurence sighing, ' he too feels as I do, 
 that he has fallen on evil days, in which 
 there can be no peace for us — little but 
 doubt and confusion, and what seems to 
 me a losing battle against the spiritual dark- 
 ness of this world. However — that red- 
 headed youth thinks very differently. He
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER II. 25 
 
 is Mr. Saunders from Oxford, supposed to be 
 very clever and advanced. Next him is 
 Donald Gordon, who has deserted deer-stalk- 
 ing and the Kirk, for literature and German 
 metaphysics/ 
 
 ' And who is that,' said Leslie, ' the young 
 lady with those large and rather sad-looking 
 eyes and the delicate, proud mouth ? ' 
 
 * Which ? ' said Laurence. 
 
 * The one on the sofa,' said LesHe, ' who 
 looks so like a Reynolds' portrait — like a 
 duchess of the last century — the lady in the 
 pale blue dress, talking to that man with such 
 a curiously attractive smile and the worn 
 melancholy look ? ' 
 
 ' That,' said Laurence, ' is Miss Merton. 
 I am glad you admire her. And don't you 
 know who it is she is talking to ? He is al- 
 most the only man of these days for whom 
 I feel a real reverence — almost the only one 
 of our teachers who seems to me to speak 
 with the least breath of inspiration. But he
 
 26 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 is too impressionable perhaps — too much Hke 
 me, in that way. And now, as the years 
 come, it seems that hope is more and more 
 leaving him, and things look darker to him 
 than ever. That is Herbert.' 
 
 * Herbert!' exclaimed Leslie, 'so it is. I 
 thought I recollected the face. I have heard 
 him lecture several times at the Royal Institu- 
 tion ; and that singular voice of his, which 
 would often hold all the theatre breathless, 
 haunts me still, sometimes. There was some- 
 thing strange and aerial in its exquisite modula- 
 tions, that seemed as if it came from a discon- 
 solate spirit, hovering over the waters of 
 Babylon, and remembering Sion. I can't tell 
 exactly why it was that — but, ah ! — my dear 
 Laurence — who is this, that is coming into 
 the room now — this lovely creature, with a 
 dress like a red azalea ? What speaking 
 eyes ! And what hair too — deep dead black, 
 with those white starry blossoms in it. I 
 don't think I ever saw anyone move so
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER 11. 27 
 
 gracefully ; and how proudly and piquantly 
 she poises 
 
 On her neck the small head buoyant, like a bell-flower 
 on its bed ! ' 
 
 * That,' said Laurence, when Leslie had 
 done, * is Mrs. Sinclair, who has published a 
 volume of poems, and is a sort of fashionable 
 London Sappho. But come, — we shall be 
 going into dinner directly. You shall have 
 Lady Ambrose on one side of you, and shall 
 take in Miss Merton.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AURENCE, though he had fore- 
 warned his guests of his menu 
 before they left the drawing-room, 
 yet felt a little anxious when they sat down to 
 dinner ; for he found it not altogether easy to 
 get the conversation started. Lady Ambrose, 
 who was the first to speak, began somewhat 
 off the point. 
 
 'What a charming change it is, Mr. 
 Laurence,' she said, ' to look out on the sea 
 when one is dressing, instead of across South 
 Audley Street ! ' 
 
 'Hush!' said Laurence, softly, with a 
 grave, reproving, smile.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 29 
 
 ' Really,' said Lady Ambrose, ' I beg your 
 pardon. I thought Dr. Jenkinson had said 
 grace.' 
 
 ' If he has,' said Laurence, ' it is very 
 good of him, for I am afraid he was not 
 asked. But what I mean is. that you must 
 only talk of what is on the cards ; so be good 
 enough to look at your inenu, and devote 
 your attention to the Aim of Life.' 
 
 ' Really, this is much too alarming,' said 
 Lady Ambrose. ' How is one to talk at so 
 short a notice on a subject one has never 
 thought about before ? ' 
 
 'Why, to do so,' said Laurence, 'is the 
 very art of conversation ; for in that way, 
 one's ideas spring up fresh like young roses 
 that have all the dew on them. Instead of 
 having been kept drying for half a lifetime 
 between the leaves of a book. So do set a 
 good example, and begin, or else we shall 
 never be started at all ; and my pet plan will 
 turn out a fiasco.'
 
 ^ THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 There was, Indeed, as Laurence said this, 
 something very near complete silence all 
 round the table. It was soon broken. 
 
 * Are you High-church or Low-church?' 
 was a question suddenly uttered in a quick 
 eager girl's voice, by Miss Prattle, a young 
 lady of eighteen, to the astonishment of the 
 whole company. It was addressed to Dr. 
 Jenkinson who was sitting next her. 
 
 Had a pin been run into the Doctor's leg, 
 he could not have looked more astounded, or 
 given a greater start. He eyed his fair 
 questioner for some time in complete silence. 
 ' Can you tell me the difference ? ' he 
 said at last, in a voice of considerable good 
 humour, yet with just a touch of sharpness 
 in it. 
 
 * I think,' said Miss Merton, who was 
 sitting on the other side of him, ' that my 
 card is a little different. I have the " Aim 
 of Life " on mine, and so I believe has 
 everybody else.'
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 31 
 
 * Well,' said the Doctor laughing, ' let us 
 ask Miss Prattle what is her aim in life.' 
 
 ' Thank Heaven,' said Laurence, ' Dr. 
 Jenkinson has begun. I hope we shall all 
 now follow.' 
 
 Laurence's hope was not in vain. The 
 conversation soon sprang up everywhere ; 
 and the company, though in various humours, 
 took most of them very kindly to the solemn 
 topic that had been put before them. Mr. 
 Luke, who was sitting by Mrs. Sinclair, was 
 heard in a loudish voice saying that his own 
 favourite Muse had always been Erato ; Mr. 
 Rose had taken a crimson flower from a vase 
 on the table, and, looking at it himself with 
 a grave regard, was pointing out its infinite 
 and passionate beauties to the lady next him ; 
 and Mr. Stockton was explaining that the 
 Alps looked grander, and the sky bluer than 
 ever, to those who truly realised the atomic 
 theory. No one, indeed, was silent except 
 Mr. Herbert and Mr. Storks, the former of
 
 32 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 whom smiled rather sadly, whilst the latter 
 looked about him with an inquisitorial 
 frown. 
 
 Laurence was delighted with the state of 
 things, and surveyed the table with great 
 satisfaction. Whilst his attention was thus 
 engaged, Lady Ambrose turned to Leslie, 
 and began asking him if he had been in town 
 much this season. She was taken with his 
 look, and wished to find out if he would 
 really be a nice person to like. 
 
 ' Please,' interposed Laurence, pleadingly, 
 * do try and keep to the point — please, Lady 
 Ambrose.' 
 
 ' I want to find out Mr. Leslie's aim 
 in life by asking him where he has been,' she 
 answered. 
 
 ' I have been in a great many places,' said 
 Leslie, ' but not to pursue any end — only to 
 try and forget that I had no end to pursue.' 
 
 ' This is a very sad state of things,' said 
 Lady Ambrose ; ' I can always find some-
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 33 
 
 thing to do, except when I am quite alone, or 
 in the counti*}' when the house is empt)-. 
 And even then I can make occupation. I 
 draw, or read a book, or teach my Httle boy 
 some lessons. But come — what do you think 
 is the real aim of life ? Since that is what I 
 must ask him, is it not, Mr. Laurence ? ' 
 
 * Don't ask me,' said Leslie ; ' I told you 
 I hadn't a notion ; and I don't suppose we 
 any of us have.' 
 
 * That can't be true,' said Lady Ambrose, 
 * for just listen how every^one is talking. I 
 wish we could hear what they are saying. 
 You might learn something then, perhaps, 
 Mr. Leslie, since you are so very ignorant.' 
 
 It happened that, as Lady Ambrose said 
 this, the conversation suddenly flagged, and 
 Laurence took advantage of the lull to ask if 
 any satisfactory conclusions had been come 
 to during the past five minutes, ' because we 
 up here,' he said, ' are very much in the dark, 
 and want to be enlightened/ 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 * Yes,' said Mr. Storks, gruffly, ' has any- 
 one found out what is the aim of life ? ' As 
 he said this he looked about him defiantly, 
 as though all the others were butterflies, that 
 he could break, if he chose, upon his wheel. 
 His eye at last lit upon Mr. Saunders, who, 
 considering this a challenge to himself, im- 
 mediately took up the gauntlet. The young 
 man spoke with the utmost composure, and, 
 as his voice was high and piercing, every- 
 body could hear him. 
 
 * The aim of life,' he said, adjusting his 
 spectacles, ' is progress.' 
 
 * What is progress ? ' interrupted Dr. 
 Jenkinson, coldly, without looking at Mr. 
 Saunders, and as though any answer to his 
 question was the last thing he expected. 
 
 * Progress,' replied Mr. Saunders, slowly, 
 ' has been found, like poetry, somewhat hard 
 to define.' 
 
 'Very true,' said the Doctor, drily, and 
 looking straight before him.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 35' 
 
 His accents were of so freezing a sharp- 
 ness that he seemed to be stabbing Mr. 
 Saunders with an icicle. Mr. Saunders, 
 however, was apparently quite unwounded. 
 
 ' But I,' he continued with the utmost 
 complacency, ' have discovered a definition 
 which will, I think, meet with general accep- 
 tance. There is nothing original in it — it is 
 merely an abstract of the meaning of all our 
 great liberal thinkers — progress is such im- 
 provement as can be verified by statistics, 
 just as education is such knowledge as can 
 be tested by examinations. That, I conceive, 
 is a very adequate definition of the most 
 advanced conception of progress, and to 
 persuade people in general to accept this, is at 
 present one of the chief duties of all earnest 
 men.' 
 
 * Entirely true ! ' said Mr. Herbert, with 
 ironical emphasis ; * an entirely true definition 
 of progress as our age prizes it.* 
 
 Mr. Saunders was delighted, and , im- 
 D 2
 
 36 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 aglning he had made a disciple, he turned to 
 Mr. Herbert and went on. 
 
 ' For just let us,' he said, ' compare a man 
 with a gorilla, and see In what the man's 
 superiority lies. It Is evidently not in the 
 man's ideas of God, and so forth — for In his 
 presumable freedom from these the gorilla Is 
 the superior of the man — ^but In the hard and 
 verifiable fact, that the man can build houses 
 and cotton-mills, whereas the highest monkey 
 can scarcely make the rudest approach to a 
 hut' 
 
 * But can you tell me,' said Mr. Herbert, 
 * supposing men some day come to a state in 
 which no more of this progress Is possible, 
 what will they do then ? ' 
 
 * Mr. Mill, whom In almost all things I 
 reverence as a supreme authority,' said Mr. 
 Saunders, ' asked himself that very question. 
 But the answer he gave himself was one of 
 the few things In which I venture to dissent 
 from him. For, when all the greater evils of
 
 BOOK L CHAPTER III. 37 
 
 life shall have been removed, he thinks the 
 human race is to find its chief enjoyment in 
 reading Wordsworth's poetry.' ^ 
 
 * Indeed!' said Mr. Herbert; 'and did 
 Mill come to any conclusion so sane as 
 that?' 
 
 ' I, on the contrary, believe,' Mr. Saun- 
 ders went on, ' that as long as the human 
 race lasts, it will still have some belief in 
 God left in it, and that the eradication of 
 this will afford an unending employment to 
 all enlightened minds.' 
 
 Leslie looked at Lady Ambrose, expecting 
 to see her smile. On the contrary she was 
 very grave, and said, ' I think this is shock- 
 ing.' 
 
 * Well,' said Laurence in a soothing tone 
 to her, ' it is only the way of these young 
 men in times of change like ours. Besides, 
 he is very young — he has only just left 
 Oxford ' 
 
 1 Vide J. S. Mill's Autobiography.
 
 38 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 * If these irreligious views are to be 
 picked up at Oxford/ said Lady Ambrose, 
 * I shall be obliged to send my little boy, 
 when he grows up, to Cambridge. And as 
 for what you say about '* times of change " — 
 I am not a conservative, as you know — indeed 
 I quite go in for reform, as my husband does : 
 but I don't think religion ought to be dragged 
 into the matter.' 
 
 'Well,' said Laurence, 'let us listen to 
 what Lord Allen is saying.' 
 
 * He is sure,' said Lady Ambrose, ' not 
 to say anything but what is nice.' 
 
 Allen was speaking in a low tone, but his 
 voice was so clear that Lady Ambrose was 
 quite able to hear him. 
 
 ' To me it seems,' he was saying, blush- 
 ing a little as he found suddenly how many 
 people were listening to him, 'that the 
 aim of life has nearly always been plain 
 enough in a certain way — always, and for all 
 men '
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 
 
 39 
 
 ' Indeed ? ' said Mr. Saunders, raising his 
 eyebrows. * 
 
 * Yes,' said Allen, slightly turning towards 
 him, and raising his voice somewhat. ' It 
 has been, I think, as a single magnet, acting 
 on all, though upon many by repulsion. It 
 is quite indescribable in words. But there 
 are two things by which you can tell a man's 
 truth to it — a faith in God, and a longing for 
 a future life.' 
 
 ' Lord Allen,' exclaimed Mr. Herbert, 
 and the sound of his voice made everyone at 
 once a listener, * that is very beautifully put ! 
 And it is, indeed, quite true as you say, that 
 the real significance of life must be for ever 
 indescribable in words. But in the present 
 day, I fear also, that for most of us it is not 
 even thinkable in thought. The whole human 
 race,' he went on in measured melancholy 
 accents, ' is now wandering in an accursed 
 wilderness, which not only shows us no hill- 
 top whence the promised land may be seen,
 
 40 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 but which, to most of the wanderers, seems a 
 promised land itself. And they have a God 
 of their own too, who engages now to lead 
 them out of it if they will only follow him : 
 who, for visible token of his Godhead, leads 
 them with a pillar of cloud by day, and a 
 pillar of fire by night — the cloud being the 
 black smoke of their factory chimneys, and 
 the fire the red glare of their blast-furnaces. 
 And so effectual are these modern divine 
 guides, that if we were standing on the 
 brink of Jordan itself, we should be utterly 
 unable to catch, through the fire and the 
 smoke, one single glimpse of the sunlit hills 
 beyond.' 
 
 Mr. Herbert said these last words almost 
 fiercely ; and they were followed by a com- 
 plete hush. It was almost directly broken by 
 Mr. Rose. 
 
 ' To me,' he said, raising his eyebrows 
 wearily, and sending his words floating down 
 the table in a languid monotone, ' Mr.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 41 
 
 Herbert's whole metaphor seems misleading. 
 I rather look upon life as a chamber, which 
 we decorate as we would decorate the 
 chamber of the woman or the youth that we 
 love, tinting the walls of It with symphonies 
 of subdued colour, and filling It with works of 
 fair form, and with flowers, and with strange 
 scents, and with Instruments of music. And 
 this can be done now as well — better rather 
 — than at any former time : since we know 
 that so many of the old aims were false, and 
 so cease to be distracted by them. We have 
 learned the weariness of creeds ; and know 
 that for us the grave has no secrets. We 
 have learned that the aim of life is life ; and 
 what does successful life consist In ? Simply,' 
 said Mr. Rose, speaking very slowly, and 
 with a soft solemnity, * In the consciousness of 
 exquisite living — in the making our own each 
 highest thrill of joy that the moment offers us 
 — be it some touch of colour on the sea or on 
 the mountains, the early dew In the crimson
 
 42 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 shadows of a rose, the shining of a woman's 
 limbs in clear water or ' 
 
 Here unfortunately a sound of * 'Sh ' 
 broke softly from several mouths. Mr. Rose 
 was slightly disconcerted, and a pause that 
 would have been a little awkward seemed 
 imminent. Laurence, to prevent this, did the 
 first thing that occurred to him, and hastily 
 asked Dr. Jenkinson what his view of the 
 matter was. 
 
 The Doctor s .answer came in his very 
 sharpest voice. 
 
 * Do any of us know what life is ? ' he 
 said. * Hadn't we better find that out 
 first ? ' 
 
 * Life,' continued Mr. Rose, who had now 
 recovered himself, 'is a series of moments 
 and emotions.' 
 
 * And a series of absurdities too, very 
 often,' said Dr. Jenkinson. 
 
 ' Life is a solemn mystery,' said Mr. Storks, 
 severely.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 43 
 
 * Life Is a d d nuisance,' muttered 
 
 Leslie to himself, but just loud enough to be 
 heard by Lady Ambrose, who smiled at him 
 with a sense of humour that won his heart 
 at once. 
 
 ' Life is matter,' Mr. Storks went on, 
 ' which, under certain conditions not yet fully 
 understood, has become self-conscious.' 
 
 * Lord Allen has just been saying that It 
 is the preface to eternity,' said Mr. Saunders. 
 
 ' Only, unfortunately,' said Laurence, * it 
 is a preface that we cannot skip, and the 
 dedication is generally made to the wrong 
 person.' 
 
 * All our doubts on this matter,' said Mr. 
 Saunders, 'are simply due to that dense 
 pestiferous fog of crazed sentiment that still 
 hides our view, but which the present genera- 
 tion has sternly set its face to dispel and 
 conquer. Science will drain the marshy 
 grounds of the human mind, so that the 
 deadly malaria of Christianity, which has
 
 44 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 already destroyed two civilisations, shall 
 never be fatal to a third.' 
 
 ' I should rather have thought,' said Mrs. 
 Sinclair, in her soft clear voice, and casting 
 down her eyes thoughtfully, ' that passion and 
 feeling were the real heart of the matter : 
 and that religion of some sort was an in- 
 gredient in all perfect passion. There are 
 seeds of feeling in every soul, but these will 
 never rise up into flowers without some 
 culture — will they, Mr. Luke ? And this 
 culture is, surely,' she said, dreamily, ' the 
 work of Love who is the gardener of the soul, 
 and of Religion, the under-gardener, acting 
 as Love bids it.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes ! ' said Mr. Luke, looking com- 
 passionately about him. ' Culture ! Mrs. 
 Sinclair is quite right ; for without culture 
 we can never understand Christianity, and 
 Christianity, whatever the vulgar may say of 
 it, is the key to life, and is co-extensive with 
 it'
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 45 
 
 Lady Ambrose was charmed with this 
 sentiment. 
 
 ' Quite so, Mr. Luke, I quite agree with 
 you,' she said, in her most cordial manner. 
 * But I wish you would tell me a little more 
 about Culture. I am always so much inter- 
 ested in those things.' 
 
 ' Culture,' said Mr. Luke, ' is the union of 
 two things — fastidious taste and liberal 
 sympathy. These can only be gained by wide 
 reading guided by sweet reason ; and when 
 they are gained, Lady Ambrose, we are 
 conscious, as it were, of a new sense, which at 
 once enables us to discern the Eternal and the 
 absolutely righteous, wherever we find it, 
 whether in an epistle of St. Paul's or in a 
 comedy of Menander's. It is true that cul- 
 ture sets aside the larger part of the New 
 Testament as grotesque, barbarous, and im- 
 moral ; but what remains, purged of its 
 apparent meaning, it discerns to be a 
 treasure beyond all price. And in Christi-
 
 46 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 anity — such Christianity, I mean, as true 
 taste can accept — culture sees the guide to 
 the real significance of life, and the explana- 
 tion,' Mr. Luke added with a sigh, ' of that 
 melancholy which in our day is attendant 
 upon all clear sight.' 
 
 ' But why,' said Allen, * if you know so 
 well what life's meaning is, need you feel 
 this melancholy at all ? ' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Mr. Luke, ' It Is from this 
 very knowledge that the melancholy I speak 
 of springs. We — the cultured — we Indeed 
 see. But the world at large does not. It will 
 not listen to us. It thinks we are talking 
 nonsense. Surely that Is enough to sadden 
 us. Then, too, our ears are perpetually be- 
 ing pained and deafened by the din of the 
 two opposing Philistinisms — science and ortho- 
 doxy — both equally vulgar, and equally use- 
 less. But the masses cannot see this. It Is 
 Impossible to persuade some that science 
 can teach them nothing worth knowing, and
 
 BOOK /. CHAPTER III. 47 
 
 Others that the dogmatic utterances of the 
 gospels are either ignorant mistakes, or 
 oriental metaphors. Don't you find this, 
 Jenkinson ? ' he added, addressing the 
 Doctor across the table in a loud mournful 
 voice. 
 
 ' Laurence,' said the Doctor, apparently 
 not hearing the question, ' haven't we talked 
 of this quite long enough ? Town and 
 Country — let us go on to that ; or else we 
 shall be getting very much behindhand.' 
 
 These words of the Doctor's caused a 
 rapid change in the conversation. And as it 
 appeared impossible to agree as to what the 
 aim of life was, most turned eagerly to the 
 simpler question of where it might be best 
 attained. At first there seemed to be 
 a general sense on all sides that it was 
 a duty to prefer the country. There, the 
 voices of Nature spoke to the soul more 
 freely, the air was purer and fresher ; the 
 things in life that were really valuable were
 
 48 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 more readily taken at their true worth ; 
 foolish vanities and trivial cares were less 
 likely to degrade the character ; one could 
 have flowers ; one could listen to the music 
 of birds and rivers ; a country house was 
 more comfortable than a town one, and few 
 prospects were so charming as an English 
 park. But the voice of Mr. Saunders was soon 
 heard proclaiming that progress was almost 
 entirely confined to towns, and that the modern 
 liberal could find little scope for action in 
 the country. * If he does anything there,' 
 Mr. Saunders said, ' he can only make his 
 tenants more comfortable and contented ; 
 and that is simply attaching them more to 
 the existing order of things. Indeed, even 
 now, as matters stand, the healthy rustic, 
 with his fresh complexion and honest eye, 
 is absolutely incapable of appreciating the 
 tyranny of religion and society. But the 
 true liberal is undeceived by his pleasing 
 exterior, and sees a far nobler creature in
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 
 
 49 
 
 the pale narrow-chested operative of the city, 
 who at once responds to the faintest cry of 
 insurgence.' 
 
 Shght causes often produce large results ; 
 and these utterances of Mr. Saunders turned 
 the entire torrent of opinion into a different 
 channel. ^\r. Luke, who had a moment 
 before been talking about 'liberal air,' and 
 ' sedged brooks,' and ' meadow grass,' now 
 admitted that one's country neighbours were 
 sure to be narrow-minded sectarians, and that 
 it was better to live amongst cultured society, 
 even under a London fog, than to look at all 
 the splendour of provincial sunsets, in com- 
 pany of a parson who could talk of nothing but 
 his parishioners and justification by faith. 
 Others, too, followed in the same direction ; 
 and the verdict of the majority soon seemed 
 to be that, except in a large country house, 
 country life, though it might be very beauti- 
 ful, was still very tiresome. But the voice of 
 Mr. Saunders was again heard, during a 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 pause, laying it down that no true liberal 
 could ever care to live in the country now ; 
 and Lady Ambrose, v/ho highly disapproved 
 of him and' his views in general, saw here a 
 fitting opportunity for contradicting him, 
 asserting that, though she and her husband 
 were both advanced liberals, yet the pleasant- 
 est part of their year was that spent upon 
 their moor in Scotland. * And then, too,' she 
 added, turning to Laurence, * I am devoted 
 to our place in Gloucestershire, and I would 
 not miss for anything such things as my 
 new dairy, and my cottages, with the old 
 women in them.' 
 
 * And yet,' said Laurence, smiling, * Sir 
 George would never go near the place if it 
 were not for the shooting.' 
 
 * Indeed he would,' said Lady Ambrose, a 
 little indignantly. ' He likes the life so much, 
 and is so fond of his gardens, and greenhouses, 
 and ' 
 
 But she was here interrupted by Mr.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 51 
 
 Herbert, who, mistaking the Sir George 
 Ambrose mentioned for another Baronet of 
 the same name — a gentleman of a very old, 
 but impoverished Catholic family, broke in as 
 follows, somewhat to the consternation of 
 Lady Ambrose, whose husband was a great 
 cotton-spinner, of the most uncertain origin. 
 
 * Sir George,' he said, ' is, as I know well, an 
 entirely honest gentleman of ancient lineage. 
 He Is indeed a perfectly beautiful type of 
 what the English Squire properly ought to 
 be. For he lives upon his own land, and 
 amongst his own people ; and is a complete 
 and lovely example to them of a life quite 
 simple indeed, but in the highest sense loyal, 
 noble, and orderly. But what Is one amongst 
 so many ? To most of his own order Sir 
 George Ambrose appears merely as a mad- 
 man, because he sees that It Is altogether a 
 nobler thing for a man to be brave and 
 chivalrous than it is to be fashionable ; and 
 because he looks forward on his dying day to 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 remembering" the human souls that he has 
 saved aHve, rather than the pheasants that 
 he has shot dead.' 
 
 Now the husband of Lady Ambrose being 
 known to most present for his magnificent 
 new country house, his immense preserves, 
 and his yacht of four hundred tons that never 
 went out of the Solent ; there was naturally 
 some wonder excited by Mr. Herbert's 
 words, since the thought of any other Sir 
 George never came for an instant into any- 
 one's head. Lady Ambrose herself was in 
 utter amazement. She could not tell what to 
 make of it, and she was as near looking con- 
 fused as she had ever been in her life. The 
 awkwardness of the situation was felt by 
 many : and to cover it a hum of conversation 
 sprang up, with forced alacrity. But this did 
 not make matters much better ; for in a very 
 short time Mr. Herbert's voice was aeain 
 audible, uttering words of no measured 
 denunciation against the great land-owners of
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 
 
 53 
 
 England, ' who were once/ he said, ' in some 
 true sense a NobiHty, but are now the por- 
 tentousest IgnobiHty that the world ever set 
 eyes upon.' Everyone felt that this was 
 approaching dangerous ground : nor were 
 they at all reassured when Mr. Herbert, who 
 was, it appeared, quoting from a letter which 
 he had received, he said, that morning from 
 the greatest of modern thinkers, concluded 
 amidst a complete silence with the following 
 passage, ' Yes, here tJiey come, with coats of 
 the newest fashion, with pedigrees of the 
 newest forging, with their moors in Scotland, 
 with their rivers in Norway, with their game 
 preserves in Engla^id, with so7ne thotcsands 
 of hicman beings calling them masters, sofne- 
 where — they probably forget where — a7id with 
 the mind of a thinking man, or with the heart 
 of a gentleman, nowhere. He7X they come, our 
 cotton-spinning plutocrats, bringing in luxtcry, 
 and vulgarity, and damnation I ' 
 
 These last words came like a thunder-
 
 54 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 clap. Laurence hardly knew where to look. 
 The result, however, was more satisfactory 
 than could have been expected. There are 
 some emotions, as we all know, that can be 
 calmed best by tears. Lady Ambrose did 
 not cry. She did something better — she 
 laughed. 
 
 ' What would poor Sir George say ? ' she 
 whispered to Laurence. * He is fishing in 
 Norway at this very moment. But do you 
 really think,' she went on, being resolved 
 not to shirk the subject, 'that Society is 
 really as bad as Mr. Herbert says ? I was 
 looking into the Comte de Grammont's 
 Memoirs the other day, and I am sure 
 nothing goes on in London now so bad as 
 what he describes.' 
 
 ' Do you know, Lady Ambrose,' said 
 Mr. Herbert, who concluded that he had 
 given her much pleasure by his late re- 
 marks, ' I think the state of London at the 
 present day infinitely worse than anything
 
 BOOK 1. CHAPTER III. 55 
 
 Grammont or his biographer could have 
 dreamt of.' 
 
 * Quite so,' said Mr. Luke ; ' the bulk of 
 men in our days are just as immoral as they 
 were in Charles the Second's ; the only 
 difference is that they are incomparably more 
 stupid ; and that, instead of decking their 
 immorality with the jewels of wit, they 
 clumsily try to cover it with the tarpaulin of 
 respectability. This has not made the 
 immorality any the better ; it has only made 
 respectability the most contemptible word in 
 the English language.' 
 
 ' The fop of Charles's time,' said Leslie, 
 * aimed at seeming a wit and a scholar. The 
 fop of ours aims at being a fool and a 
 dunce.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mr. Herbert, ' society was 
 diseased then, it is true, and marks of disease 
 disfigured and scarred its features. Still, in 
 spite of this, it had some sound life left in it. 
 But now the entire organism is dissolving
 
 56 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 and falling asunder. All the parts are re- 
 fusing to perform their functions. How, 
 indeed, could this possibly be otherwise, 
 when the head itself, the aristocracy, the 
 part whose special office is to see and think, 
 has now lost completely both its brains and 
 eyes, and has nothing head-like left it ex- 
 cept the mouth ; and that cannot so much as 
 speak. It can only eat and yawn.' 
 
 * Society, you see, Mr. Herbert,' said 
 Lady Ambrose, who felt bound to say 
 something, 'is so much larger now than it 
 was.' 
 
 * Oh,' said Laurence, shrugging his 
 shoulders, ' in that sense, I really think there 
 is almost no society now.' 
 
 * I don't see how there can be,' said Miss 
 Merton, ' when what is called society is 
 simply one great scramble after fashion. And 
 fashion is such a delicate fruit, that it is sure 
 to be spoilt if it is scrambled for.' 
 
 * I am glad,' said Laurence, ' you don't
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 57 
 
 abuse fashion as some people do. I look on 
 it as the complexion of good society, and as 
 the rouge of bad ; and when society gets 
 sickly and loses its complexion, it takes to 
 rouge — as it is doing now ; and the rouge 
 eats into its whole system, and makes its 
 health worse than ever.' 
 
 * You are the last person, Mr. Laurence,' 
 said Lady Ambrose, ' you who go out so 
 much, that I should have expected to hear 
 talking against society like that.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Laurence, ' we cannot escape 
 from our circumstances. I only wish we 
 could. I go into the best society I can get, 
 but I am not blind to the fact that it is very 
 bad. Of course there are a number of the 
 most delightful people in it. I am not deny- 
 ing that for a moment. But not only is 
 society not made up out of a few of its parts, 
 but even the best parts suffer from the tone 
 of the whole. And taking society as a whole, 
 I honestly doubt if it was ever at any time
 
 58 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 SO generally bad as it is now. I am not 
 saying that it has forgotten its duties — 
 that it cannot even conceive that it ever had 
 any. That is of course quite true : but Mr. 
 Herbert has said that already. I am not 
 complaining of its moral badness, but of its 
 social badness — of its want of practical skill 
 in life as a fine art — a want that it often feels 
 itself, and yet has not the skill to remedy. 
 Think for a moment how barbarous are its 
 amusements ; how little culture there is in its 
 general tone ; how incapable it is of any en- 
 lightened interest ! ' 
 
 * Really,' said Mr. Stockton, ' I think you 
 are doing society a great injustice. It seems 
 to me that enlightened interest is the very 
 thing that is everywhere on the spread. The 
 light of intellect is emerging from the labor- 
 atory and the dissecting-room, where it had 
 its birth, and is gilding, with its clear rays, 
 the dinner-table, and even the ball-room. A 
 freer, a truer, and a grander view of things.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III, 
 
 59 
 
 seems to me to be rapidly dawning on the 
 world.' 
 
 ' I fear, my dear sir/ said Mr. Luke, ' that 
 these pleasing opinions of yours will not bear 
 testing.' 
 
 ' Do you mean,' said Mr. Stockton, * that 
 society as a rule is not infinitely better in- 
 formed now than it was thirty years ago ^ 
 Has it not infinitely fewer prejudices and 
 infinitely more knowledge ? ' 
 
 'We should look to the effects of the 
 knowledge, not to the knowledge itself,' said 
 Mr. Luke. ' We cannot test the health of a 
 society from looking over its examination 
 papers in physical science.' 
 
 ' How would you test it ? ' said Mr. 
 Stockton, with a slight curl of the lip. 
 
 * There are many tests,' said Mr. Luke. 
 ' Here is one, amongst the very subjects that 
 Mr. Laurence has ordered us to talk about — 
 art and literature.' 
 
 * I accept the test,' said Mr. Stockton.
 
 6o THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ' What, then, can be nobler than much 
 modern poetry ? There is some that I look 
 upon as quite of the highest order/ 
 
 * When I spoke of our literature,' said 
 Mr. Luke, loftily, ' I was not thinking of 
 poetry. We have no poetry now.' 
 
 ' Indeed ?' said Mr. Stockton ; * I imagined 
 you had written some yourself.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' exclaimed Mr. Luke, drawing a 
 long sigh, ' I once knew what Goethe calls 
 *' the divine worth of tone and tears.'' But 
 my own poems only prove the truth of what 
 I say. They could only have been written 
 in evil days. They were simply a wail of 
 pain, and now that I am grown braver, I keep 
 silence. Poetry in some ages is an expression 
 of the best strength ; in an age like ours it is 
 the disguise of the worst weakness — or, when 
 not that, it is simply a forced plant, an exotic. 
 No, Mr. Stockton, I was not speaking of our 
 poetry, but of the one kind of imaginative 
 literature, that is the natural growth of our
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 6i 
 
 own day, the novel. Now the novel itself is 
 a plant which, when it grows abundantly and 
 alone, you may be sure is a sign of a poor 
 soil. But don't trust to that only. Look at 
 our novels themselves, and see what sort of 
 life it is they image — the trivial interests, the 
 contemptible incidents, the absurdity of the 
 virtuous characters, the viciousness of the 
 characters who are not absurd. Spain was in 
 some ways worse in Cervantes' time than 
 England is in ours ; but you may search all 
 our novels for one character that has one 
 tithe of Don Quixote's heroism, for one of 
 our sane men that breathed in so healthy and 
 pure an atmosphere as the inspired madman. 
 And this is not from want of ability on the 
 novelist's part. Some of them have powers 
 enough and to spare ; but the best novels 
 only reflect back most clearly the social 
 anarchy, and the bad ones are unconscious 
 parts of it.' 
 
 * And as for our painting,' said Mr.
 
 62 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Herbert, * that reflects, even more clearly 
 than our literature, our hideous and our hope- 
 less degradation. The other day, when I 
 walked through the Royal Academy, my 
 mind was literally dazzled by the Infernal 
 glare of corruption and vulgarity that was 
 flashed upon me from every side. There 
 were, Indeed, only two pictures In the whole 
 collection that were not entirely abominable ; 
 and these were, one of them three boulders In 
 the island of Sark, the other a study of 
 pebbles on the beach at Ilfracombe.' 
 
 ' I know little about the technicalities of 
 art,' said Mr. Stockton, ' so I will not presume 
 to dispute this point with you.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Leslie, ' here is another test 
 quite as good as art and literature — love and 
 money, and their relations In our days.' 
 
 He would have continued speaking ; but 
 Mr. Herbert allowed him no time. 
 
 * The very things,' he said, ' I was about 
 to touch upon — the very things the pictures
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 63 
 
 the Other day suggested to me. For seeing 
 how the work of the painter becomes 
 essentially vile so soon as it becomes essen- 
 tially venal, I was reminded of the like 
 corruption of what is far more precious than 
 the work of any painter — our own English 
 girls, who are prepared for the modern 
 marriage-market on precisely the same prin- 
 ciples as our pictures for the Royal Academy. 
 There is but one difference. The work of 
 the modern painter is vile from its very be- 
 ginning — in its conception and execution 
 alike ; but our girls we receive, in the first 
 instance, entirely fair and sacred from the 
 hands of God himself, clothed upon with 
 a lovelier vesture than any lilies of the 
 field ' 
 
 * Really,' whispered Lady Ambrose to 
 Laurence, ' Providence has done so very 
 little for us, as far as vesture goes.' 
 
 ' And we,' Mr. Herbert went on, 
 
 * with unspeakable profanity presume to
 
 64 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 dress and to decorate them, till the heavenly 
 vesture is entirely hidden, thinking, like 
 a modern Simon Magus, that the gifts of 
 God are to be purchased for money, and 
 not caring to perceive that, if they are 
 to be purchased with the devil's money, 
 we must first convert them into the devil's 
 gifts/ 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Sinclair, with a faint 
 smile, ' the day for love-matches is quite gone 
 over now.' 
 
 But her words were drowned by Mr. 
 Saunders, who exclaimed at the top of his 
 voice, and in a state of great excitement, 
 ' Electric telegraphs — railways — steam print- 
 ing presses — let me beg of you to consider 
 the very next subject set for us — riches and 
 civilisation — and to judge of the present 
 generation by the light of that' 
 
 ' I have considered them,' said Mr. 
 Herbert, 'for the last thirty years — and with 
 inexpressible melancholy.'
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 65 
 
 ' I conceive,' said Mr. Saunders, * that 
 you are somewhat singular in your feel- 
 ings.' 
 
 ' I am,' replied Mr. Herbert, *and that in 
 most of my opinions and feelings I am sin- 
 gular, is a fact fraught for me with the most 
 ominous significance. Yet how could I — 
 who think that health is more than wealth, 
 and who hold it a more important thing to 
 separate right from wrong than to identify 
 men with monkeys— how could I hope to be 
 anything but singular in a generation that 
 deliberately, and with its eyes open, prefers a 
 cotton-mill to a Titian ? ' 
 
 * I hold it,' said Mr. Saunders, ' to be one 
 of the great triumphs of our day, that it has 
 so subordinated all the vaguer and more law- 
 less sentiments to the solid guidance of sober 
 economical considerations. And not only do 
 I consider a cotton-mill, but I consider even 
 a good sewer, to be a far nobler and a far 
 holier thing — for holy in reality does not 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 mean healthy — than the most admired 
 Madonna ever painted.' 
 
 ' A good sewer,' said Mr. Herbert, ' is, I 
 admit, an entirely holy thing ; and would all 
 our manufacturers and men of science bury 
 themselves underground, and confine their 
 attention to making sewers, I, for one, should 
 have little complaint against them.' 
 
 ' And are railways, telegraphs, gas-lamps 
 — is the projected Channel tunnel, nothing in 
 your eyes ? Is it nothing that all the condi- 
 tions of life are ameliorated, that mind is 
 daily pursuing farther its conquest over 
 matter ? ' 
 
 ' Have we much to thank you for,' said 
 Mr, Herbert, ' that you have saved us from 
 an hour of sea-sickness, if in return you give 
 us a whole lifetime of heart-sickness ? Your 
 mind, my good sir, that you boast of, is so 
 occupied in subduing matter that it is entirely 
 forgetful of subduing itself — a matter, trust me, 
 that is far more important. And as for your
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 67 
 
 amelioration of the conditions of life — that is 
 not civilisation which saves a man from the 
 need of exercising any of his powers, but 
 which obliges him to exert his noble powers ; 
 not that which satisfies his lower feelings with 
 the greatest ease, but which provides satisfac- 
 tion for his higher feelings, no matter at what 
 trouble.' 
 
 ' Other things being equal,' said Mr. 
 Saunders, ' I apprehend that the generation 
 that travels sixty miles an hour is at least 
 five times as civilised as the generation that 
 travels only twelve.' 
 
 ' But the other things are not equal,' said 
 Mr. Herbert : ' and the other things, by which 
 I suppose you mean all that is really sacred 
 in the life of man, have been banished or 
 buried by the very things which we boast of 
 as our civilisation.' 
 
 ' That is our own fault,' said Mr. Saun- 
 ders, ' not the fault of civilisation.' 
 
 * Not so,' said Mr. Herbert. * Bring up 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 a boy to do nothing for himself — make every- 
 thing easy for him — to use your own expres- 
 sion, subdue matter for him — and that boy 
 will never be able to subdue anything for 
 himself He will be weak in body, and a 
 
 coward in soul ' 
 
 * Precisely,' said Mr. Saunders. ' And 
 that is really, if you look dispassionately at 
 the matter, a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished. For why do we need our bodies to 
 be strong ? To overcome obstacles. Why 
 do we need to be brave ? To attack enemies. 
 But by and bye, when all our work is done 
 by machinery, and we have no longer any 
 obstacles to overcome, or any hardships to 
 endure, strength will become useless, and 
 bravery dangerous. And my own hope is that 
 both will have ere long vanished ; and that 
 weakness and cowardice, qualities which we 
 now so irrationally despise, will have vindicated 
 their real value, by turning universal civilisa- 
 tion into universal peace.'
 
 BOOK 1. CHAPTER III. 69 
 
 'Yes,' said Mr. Herbert, ' that Is exactly 
 what the modern world is longing for — a 
 universal peace ; which never can nor will 
 mean anything else than peace with the 
 devil.' 
 
 ' Really,' said Lady Ambrose to Leslie, 
 * do you think we are in such a bad way as 
 all this ? Dr. Jenkinson, I must ask you — 
 you always know these things — do you think 
 we are so very bad ? ' 
 
 ' Yes — yes,' said the Doctor, turning 
 towards her with a cheerful smile, ' there is a 
 great deal that is very bad in our own days — 
 very bad indeed. Many thoughtful people 
 think that there is more that is bad In the 
 present than there has ever been in the past. 
 Many thoughtful people in all days have 
 thought the same.' 
 
 ' Whenever wise men,' said Herbert, 
 ' have taken to thinking about their own 
 times. It is quite true that they have always 
 thought ill of them. But that Is because the
 
 ^o THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 times must have gone wrong before the wise 
 men take to the business of thinking about 
 them at all. We are never conscious of our 
 constitutions till they are out of order.' 
 
 ' Ah ! yes,' said Mr. Luke ; ' how true 
 that is, Herbert ! Philosophy may be a 
 golden thing. But it is the gold of the 
 autumn woods that soon falls, and leaves the 
 boughs of the nation naked.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Leslie, ' leaving nothing but 
 
 Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Mr. Leslie,' exclaimed Mr. 
 Herbert across the table, ' thank you — an ex- 
 quisitely apt quotation.' 
 
 ' Then you, Mr. Leslie,' said Lady Am- 
 brose in a disappointed voice, *you are one 
 of these desponding people too, are you ? I 
 never heard anything so dismal in my life.' 
 
 ' I certainly think,' said Leslie, ' that our 
 age in some ways could not possibly be worse. 
 Nobody knows what to believe, and most
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 71 
 
 people believe nothing. Don't you find 
 that ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed I do not/ said Lady Ambrose, 
 with some vigour, ' and I am very sorry for 
 those who do. That Mr. Saunders,' she 
 added, lowering her voice, ' Is the first person 
 I ever heard express such views. We were 
 dining only the other day with the Bishop of 
 
 , and I'll tell you what he said, Mr. 
 
 Leslie. He said that the average number of 
 churches built yearly during the last ten years 
 was greater than It had ever been since the 
 Reformation. That does not look as if re- 
 ligion was on the decline, does It ? I know 
 the Bishop spoke of a phase of Infidelity that 
 was passing over the nation : but that, he 
 said, would soon have drifted by. Indeed 
 he told us that all the teachings of modern 
 irreligious science were simply reproductions 
 of — you must not laugh at me if I say the 
 names wrong — Epicurus and Democrltus — 
 which had been long ago refuted. And that
 
 72 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 was no peculiar crotchet of his own mind ; for a 
 very clever gentleman who was sitting next 
 me said that that was the very thing which 
 all the bishops agreed in saying — almost the 
 only thing indeed in which they did agree/ 
 
 * Ah ! ' said Leslie, ' materialism once 
 came to the world like a small street 
 boy throwing mud at it ; and the indignant 
 world very soon drove it away. But it has 
 now come back again, dirtier than ever, 
 bringing a big brother with it, and Heaven 
 knows when we shall get rid of it now.' 
 
 ' In every state of transition,' said Dr. 
 Jenkinson to Miss Merton, 'there must 
 always be much uneasiness. But I don't 
 think,' he said, with a litde pleased laugh, 
 ' that you will find these times really much 
 worse than those that went before them. No 
 — no. If we look at them soberly, they are 
 really a great deal better. We have already 
 got rid of a vast amount of superstition and 
 ignorance, and are learning what Christianity
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 73 
 
 really Is. We are learning true reverence — 
 that Is, not to dogmatise about subjects of 
 which we cannot possibly know anything.' 
 
 'Just so, Jenklnson,' said Mr. Luke ; ' that 
 Is the very thing I am trying to teach the 
 world myself. Personal Immortality, for 
 Instance, which forms no part of the sweet 
 secret of authentic Christlanit}^ ' 
 
 ' Yes — yes,' said the Doctor, hastily ; ' the 
 Church had degraded the doctrine. It needed 
 to be expressed anew.' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Miss Merton, 'I, as a 
 Catholic ' 
 
 ' Dear ! dear ! ' exclaimed the Doctor, In 
 some confusion, ' I beg your pardon. I had 
 no notion you were a Roman Catholic' 
 
 * I was going to say,' Miss Merton went 
 on, 'that, though of course as a Catholic I 
 am not without what I believe to be an infal- 
 lible guide, I feel just as much as anyone 
 the bad state In which things are now. It Is 
 so difficult to shape one's course In life. One
 
 74 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 has nowhere any work cut out for one. 
 There is a want of — well — ' she said 
 smiling ' of what perhaps, when religion has 
 been analysed by science, will be called moral 
 ozone, in the air.' 
 
 ' Such a feeling is not unnatural,' said the 
 Doctor ; * but you will find it vanish if you 
 just resolve cheerfully to go on doing the 
 duty next you — even if this be to only order 
 dinner. And,' he said, turning to her rather 
 abruptly, ' don't despond over the times. 
 That only makes them worse. Besides, 
 they are not really at all bad. There is no 
 need for desponding at all.' 
 
 ' But there is at least excuse,' said 
 Laurence, ' when we see all the old faiths, the 
 old ideas, under which the world has so long 
 found shelter, fading 
 
 Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 rapidly and for ever away from us.' 
 
 ' I don't think so,' said the Doctor, as if 
 that settled the question.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 75 
 
 * Christianity,' said Mr. Stockton, ' is only 
 retiring to make way for something better. 
 ReHgions are not quickened unless they 
 perish. Look forward at the growing bright- 
 ness of the future, not at the faded brightness 
 of the past' 
 
 ' Why not look at the present ? ' said Dr. 
 Jenkinson. ' Depend upon it, it is not wise 
 to be above one's times. There's plenty of 
 religion now. The real power of Christianity 
 is growing every day, even where you least 
 expect it' 
 
 ' In what part of Christianity,' said Leslie, 
 ' its real power lies, it would be unbecoming in 
 me to profess that I knew. But this I do 
 know, that if you take four out of five of the 
 more thoughtful and instructed men of the day, 
 you will find that not only have they no faith 
 in a personal God, or a personal inmortality, 
 but the very notions of such things seem 
 to them absurdities.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mr. Herbert, ' it was once
 
 76 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 thought a characteristic of the lowest savages 
 to be without a beHef in a future life. It will 
 soon be thought a characteristic of the lowest 
 savages to be with one.' 
 
 ' Really now — ' said Mr. Luke, in a voice 
 whose tone seemed to beseech everyone to be 
 sensible, ' personal immortality and a per- 
 sonal Deity are no doctrines of Christianity. 
 You, Jenkinson, I know agree with me.' 
 
 There was nothing the Doctor so disliked 
 as these appeals from Mr. Luke. He made 
 in this case no response whatever. He 
 turned instead to Miss Merton. 
 
 * You see,' he said to her in a very quiet 
 but very judicial way, ' the age we live in is 
 an age of change. And in all such ages 
 there must be many things that. If we let them, 
 will pain and puzzle us. But we mustn't let 
 them. There have been many ages of change 
 before our time, and there are sure to be 
 many after it. Our age is not peculiar.' 
 
 Here he paused, as he had a way of
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. yj 
 
 doing at times between his sentences. This 
 practice now, as it had often been before, was 
 of a disservice to him ; for it gave a fatal 
 faciHty for interruption when he could least 
 have wished it. In this case Leslie entirely 
 put him out, by attacking the very statement 
 which the Doctor least of all had designed to 
 bear question. 
 
 * But in some ways,' said Leslie, ' this age 
 is peculiar, surely. It is peculiar in the 
 extraordinary rapidity of its changes. Chris- 
 tianity took three hundred years to supplant 
 polytheism ; atheism has hardly taken thirty 
 to supplant Christianity.' 
 
 Dr. Jenkinson did not deign to take the 
 least notice of this. 
 
 * I suppose,' said Miss Merton to Leslie, 
 * that you think Catholicism quite a thing of 
 the past' 
 
 * I'm afraid,' said Leslie, ' that my opinion 
 on that is of very small importance. But, 
 however that may be, you must admit that in
 
 78 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 the views of the world at large there have 
 been great changes ; and these, I say, have 
 come on us with so astonishing a quickness that 
 they have plunged us into a state of mental 
 anarchy that has not been equalled since 
 mental order has been known. There is no 
 recognised rule of life anywhere. The old 
 rules only satisfy those who are not capable 
 of feeling the need of any rule at all. Every 
 one who does right at all only does what is 
 right in his own eyes. All society, it seems, 
 is going to pieces.' 
 
 ' I,' said Mr. Rose, ' look upon social 
 dissolution as the true condition of the most 
 perfect life. For the centre of life is the 
 individual, and it is only through dissolution 
 that the individual can re-emerge. All the 
 warrings of endless doubts, all the question- 
 ings of matter and of spirit, which I have 
 myself known, I value only, because, remem- 
 bering the weariness of them, I take a 
 profounder and more exquisite pleasure in
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III, 79 
 
 the colour of a crocus, the pulsations of a 
 chord of music, or a picture of Sandro 
 BottlcelHs.' 
 
 Mr. Rose's words hardly produced all the 
 effect he could have wished ; for the last part 
 was almost drowned in the general rustle of 
 the ladles rising. 
 
 ' Before we go, Mr. Laurence,' said Lady- 
 Ambrose, ' will you be good enough to tell 
 me the history of these salt-cellars ? I 
 wanted to have asked you at the beginning 
 of dinner, but you made yourself so very 
 appalling then, that I really did not ven- 
 ture.' 
 
 * Well,' said Laurence, ' no doubt they 
 surprise you. They were a present made to 
 me the other day by a friend of mine — an 
 eminent man of science, and are models of a 
 peculiar kind of retort he has invented, for 
 burning human bodies, and turning them into 
 gas.' 
 
 ' Good gracious ! ' said Lady Ambrose,
 
 8o THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 * how horrible ! I insist, Mr. Laurence, on 
 your having another set to-morrow night — 
 remember.' 
 
 ' There,' said Laurence, when the gentle- 
 men had resettled themselves, and had 
 begun their wine, ' there is the new version 
 of the skeleton at the banquet-board — the 
 two handfuls of white dust, to which we, the 
 salt of the earth, shall one day crumble. Let 
 us sacrifice all the bulls we have to Pluto 
 illacrimabilis — let us sacrifice ourselves to 
 one another, or to Heaven — to this favour 
 must we come. Is not that so, Mr. Storks ? ' 
 
 * Laurence,' said Dr. Jenkinson, briskly, 
 ' the conversation hasn't kept pace with the 
 dinner. We have got no farther than " The 
 Present " yet. The ladies are going to talk 
 of '' The Future " by themselves. See — 
 there they are out on the terrace.' 
 
 Mr. Storks here drew his chair to the 
 table, and cleared his throat. 
 
 * It is easier,' he said, ' to talk about the
 
 BOOK T. CHAPTER III. 8i 
 
 present now we are alone — now they' he 
 nodded his head in the direction of the 
 party outside, ' are gone out to talk about 
 the future in the moonlight. There are 
 many things which even yet it does not do 
 to say before women, at least before all 
 women.' 
 
 ' My aunt,' said Laurence, ' Is a great 
 authority on woman's education and true 
 position ; and she has written an essay to 
 advance the female cause.' 
 
 ' Indeed ?' said Mr. Storks ; ' I was not 
 aware of that. I shall look forward with 
 much pleasure to some conversation with her. 
 But what I was going to say related to the 
 present, which at dinner was on all sides so 
 mercilessly run down. I was going to claim 
 for the present age, in thought and specula- 
 tion (and it is these that give their tone to 
 its entire conduct of life), as its noble and 
 peculiar feature, a universal, intrepid, dogged 
 resolve to find out and face the complete 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 truth of things, and to allow no prejudice, 
 however dear to us, to obscure our vision. 
 This is the only real morality : and not only 
 is it full of blessing for the future, but it is 
 giving us *' manifold more in this present 
 time" as well. The work of science, you 
 see, is twofold ; it enlarges the horizon of 
 the mind, and improves the conditions of the 
 body. If you will pardon my saying so, Mr. 
 Herbert, I think your antipathy to science 
 must be due to your not having fully appreci- 
 ated its true work and dignity.' 
 
 ' The work of science is, I know, two- 
 fold,' said Mr. Herbert, 'speculative and 
 practical.' 
 
 ' Exactly so,' said Mr. Storks, approv- 
 ingly. 
 
 * And all it can do for us in speculation,' 
 said Mr. Herbert, 'is to teach us that we 
 have no life hereafter : all it can do for us in 
 practice, is to ruin our life here. It enervates 
 us by providing us with base luxury ; it de-
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 83 
 
 grades us by turning our attention to base 
 knowledge.' 
 
 ' No — no,' said Dr. Jenkinson, with one 
 of his little laughs, ' not that. I don't think 
 Mr. Storks, that Mr. Herbert always quite 
 means what he says. We mustn't take him 
 at his word.' 
 
 * My dear sir,' said Mr. Herbert, turning 
 to the Doctor, * you are a consecrated priest 
 of the mystical Church of Christ' — Dr. Jen- 
 kinson winced terribly at this — ' and let me 
 ask you if you think it the work of Christ to 
 bring into men's minds eternal corruption, 
 instead of eternal life — or rather not corrup- 
 tion, I should say, but putrefaction. For 
 what is putrefaction but decomposition ? And 
 at the touch of science all our noblest ideas 
 decompose and putrefy, till our whole souls 
 are strewn with dead hopes and dead religions, 
 with corpses of all the thoughts we loved 
 
 Quickening slowly into lower forms. 
 You may call it analysis, but I call it death.' 
 
 G2
 
 84 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ' I wish we could persuade you/ said Mr. 
 Stockton, very temperately, ' to take a fairer 
 view of things. Surely truth cannot in the 
 long run be anything but life-giving.' 
 
 * Let us take care of facts,' said Mr. Storks, 
 *■ and fictions — I beg your pardon, religion — 
 will take care of itself 
 
 * And religion,' said Mr. Stockton, ' will 
 take care of itself very well. Of course we don't 
 waste time now in thinking about personal 
 immortality. We shall not live ; but the mind 
 of man will ; and religion will live too, being 
 part of the mind of man. Religion is, indeed, 
 to the inner world what the sky is to the 
 outer. It is the mind's canopy — the infinite 
 mental azure in which the mysterious source 
 of our being is at once revealed and hidden. 
 Let us beware, then, of not considering re- 
 ligion noble ; but let us beware still more of 
 considering it true. We may fancy that we 
 trace in the clouds shapes of real things ; and, 
 as long as we know that this is only fancy, I
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 85 
 
 know of no holier occupation for the human 
 mind than such cloud-gazing. But let us 
 always recollect that the cloud which to us 
 may seem shaped like a son of man, ma^ 
 seem to another to be backed like a weasel, 
 and to another to be very like a whale. What, 
 then, \ Mr. Stockton added, ' can be a nobler 
 study than the great book of Nature, or, as 
 we used to call it, the works of God ? ' 
 
 ' Pray do not think,' said Mr. Herbert, 
 ' that I complain of this generation because it 
 studies Nature. I complain of it because it 
 does not study her. Yes,' he went on, as he 
 saw Mr. Stockton start, ' you can analyse her 
 in your test tubes, you can soy at her through 
 your microscopes ; but can you see her with 
 your own eyes, or receive her into your own 
 souls ? You can tell us what she makes her 
 wonders of, and how she makes them, and 
 how long she takes about it. But you can- 
 not tell us what these wonders are like when 
 they are made. When God said, *' Let there
 
 86 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 be light, and light was, and God saw that it 
 was good," was he thinking, as he saw this, of 
 the exact velocity it travelled at, and of the 
 exact laws it travelled by, which you wise 
 men are at such infinite pains to discover ; or 
 was he thinking of something else, which you 
 take no pains to discover at all — of how it 
 clothed the wings of the morning with silver, 
 and the feathers of the evening with gold ? 
 Is water, think you, a nobler thing to the 
 modern chemist, who can tell you exactly 
 what gases it is made of, and nothing more ; 
 or to Turner who could not tell you at all 
 what it is made of, but who did know and 
 who could tell you what it is made — what it is 
 made by the sunshine, and the cloud-shadow, 
 and the storm-wind — who knew how it paused 
 in the taintless mountain trout-pool, a living 
 crystal over stones of flickering amber ; and 
 how it broke itself turbid, with its choirs of 
 turbulent thunder, when the rocks card it 
 into foam, and where the tempest sifts it into
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 87 
 
 Spray ? When Pindar called water the best 
 of things, was he thinking of it as the union 
 of oxygen and hydrogen ' 
 
 ' He would have been much wiser if he 
 had been,' interposed Dr. Jenkinson. ' Thales, 
 to whose theory, as you know, Pindar was 
 
 referring ' But the Doctor's words were 
 
 utterly unavailing to check the torrent of Mr. 
 Herbert's eloquence. They only turned it 
 into a slightly different course. 
 
 * Ah ! masters of modern science,' he went 
 on, ' you can tell us what pure water is made 
 of ; but, thanks to your drains and your mills, 
 you cannot tell us where to find it. You can, 
 no doubt, explain to us all about sunsets ; but 
 the smoke of your towns and your factories 
 has made it impossible for us to see one. 
 However, each generation is wise in its own 
 wisdom ; and ours would sooner look at a 
 foetus in a bottle, than at a statue of the 
 god Apollo, from the hand of Phidias, and in 
 the air of Athens.'
 
 88 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 During all this speech Mr. Storks had 
 remained with his face buried in his hands, 
 every now and then drawing in his breath 
 through his teeth, as if he were in pain. 
 When it was over he looked up, with a scared 
 expression, as if he hardly knew where he 
 was, and seemed quite unable to utter a 
 syllable. 
 
 ' Of course,* said Mr. Stockton, ' mere 
 science, as science, does not deal with moral 
 right and wrong.' 
 
 'No,' said Mr. Saunders, 'for It has 
 shown that right and wrong are terms of a 
 bygone age, connoting altogether false Ideas. 
 Mere automata as science shows we are — 
 clockwork machines, wound up by meat and 
 drink ' 
 
 'As for that,' broke in Mr. Storks, who 
 had by this time recovered himself — and his 
 weighty voice at once silenced Mr. Saunders, 
 ' I would advise our young friend not to be 
 too confident. We may be automata, or we
 
 BOOK L CHAPTER III. 89 
 
 may not. Science has not yet decided. And 
 upon my word/ he said, striking the table, 
 ' I don't myself care which we are. Supposing 
 the Deity — if there be one — should offer to 
 make me a machine, if I am not one, on con- 
 dition that I should always go right, I, for one, 
 would gladly close with the proposal.' 
 
 ' But you forget,' said Allen, ' that in the 
 moral sense there would be no going right at 
 all, if there were not also the possibility of 
 going wrong. If your watch keeps good time 
 you don't call it virtuous, nor if it keeps bad 
 time do you call it sinful.' 
 
 * Sin, Lord Allen,' said Mr. Storks, ' is 
 a word that has helped to retard moral 
 and social progress more than anything. 
 Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes 
 it so ; and the superstitious and morbid way 
 V in which a number of entirely innocent things 
 have been banned as sin, has caused more 
 than half the tragedies of the world. Science 
 will establish an entirely new basis of
 
 90 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 morality ; and the sunlight of rational appro- 
 bation will shine on many a thing, hitherto 
 overshadowed by the curse of a hypothetical 
 God/ 
 
 ' Exactly so,' exclaimed Mr. Saunders 
 eagerly. ' Now I'm not at all that sort of 
 man myself,' he went on, 'so don't think it 
 because I say this.' 
 
 Everyone stared at Mr. Saunders in 
 wonder as to what he could mean. 
 
 ' We think it, for instance,' he said, ' a very 
 sad thing when a girl is as we call it ruined. 
 But it is we really that make all the sadness. 
 She is ruined only because we think she is 
 so. And I have litde doubt that that higher 
 philosophy of the future that Mr. Storks 
 speaks of will go far, some day, towards solving 
 the great question of women's sphere of action, 
 by its recognition of prostitution as an honour- 
 able and beneficent profession.' 
 
 ' Sir ! ' exclaimed Mr. Storks, striking the 
 table, and glaring with indignation at Mr.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER III. 91 
 
 Saunders, ' I could hardly have believed that 
 such misplaced flippancy ' 
 
 ' Flippancy ! it is reasoned truth,' shrieked 
 Mr. Saunders, upsetting his wine-glass. 
 
 Luckily this brought about a pause. 
 Laurence took advantage of it. 
 
 ' See,' he said, ' Dr. Jenkinson has left us. 
 Will no one have any more wine ? — Then 
 suppose we follow him.'
 
 t t ' \» ' ^ KK ■m 'J t - 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 T was a calm, lovely evening. The 
 moon was rising over the sea, and 
 the sea was slowly silvering under 
 it. A soft breeze breathed gently, full of the 
 scents of flowers ; and in the low sky of the 
 west there yet lingered a tender peach-colour. 
 The ladies were sitting about on chairs, 
 grouped together, but with several little 
 groups within the group ; and amongst them 
 all was Dr. Jenkinson, making himself par- 
 ticularly agreeable to Mrs. Sinclair. When 
 the gentlemen emerged there was a general 
 stir, and Lady Ambrose, shutting up a 
 volume of St. Simons Memoirs, said, 'Well,
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 93 
 
 Mr. Laurence, we have been talking most 
 industriously about the future.' 
 
 Laurence was standing with Mr. Luke on 
 the step of the dining-room window, and both 
 were looking out gravely on the tranquil 
 scene. 
 
 ' Do you remember/ said Laurence, ' that 
 it was here, three years ago, that you com- 
 posed the lines that stand last in your pub- 
 lished volumes ? ' 
 
 * I remember,' said Mr. Luke dreamily. 
 ' What an evening that was ! ' 
 
 ' I wish you would repeat them,' said 
 Laurence. 
 
 * What is the good } ' said Mr. Luke, * why 
 rouse again the voices that haunt 
 
 About the mouldered lodges of the past ? ' 
 
 ' Mr. Luke,' said Lady Ambrose appeal- 
 ingly, * I do so wish you would.' 
 
 ' Is Mr. Luke going to recite poetry ? ' said 
 Mrs. Sinclair, coming languidly up to them.
 
 94 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ' How delicious ! ' She was looking lovely in 
 the dim light, with a diamond star shining in 
 her dark hair ; and for a mortal bard there 
 was positively no resisting her appeal. 
 
 Mr. Luke, with a silent composure, 
 pressed his hands for a moment against his 
 forehead ; he gave one hem ; and then in a 
 clear melodious voice began as follows : — 
 
 * Softly the evening descends, 
 Violet and soft. The sea 
 Adds to the silence, below 
 Pleasant and cool on the beach 
 Breaking; yes, and a breeze 
 Cabn as the twilight itself 
 Ficrtively sighs through the dusk, 
 Listlessly lifting 7ny hair. 
 Fanning my thought-wearied brow. 
 
 Thus / stand in the gloo7?t 
 Watching the moon-track begin 
 Quivering to die like a dream 
 Over the far sea-line 
 To the unknown region beyond. 
 
 ^ So for ages hath man 
 Gazed on the ocean of time 
 F?'om the shores of his birth, and, turning 
 His eyes from the quays, the thronged
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 95 
 
 Maris ^ the noise and the din 
 
 To the far horizon, hath dreamed 
 
 Of a timeless country beyond. 
 
 Vainly, for how should he pass, 
 Being on foot ^ der the wet 
 Ways of the tmplu?nbed waves ? 
 Mow, without ship, should he pass 
 Over the shipless sea 
 To the ti?tieless country beyond "i 
 
 * Ah, but 07ice — 07ice long ago, 
 Came there a ship white-sailed 
 From the country beyoJid, with bright 
 Oarsmen, and me?i that sang; 
 Came to Huma7iity's coasts. 
 Called to the men on the shore. 
 Joyously touched at the port. 
 
 Then did time-weary man 
 Climb the bulwarks, the deck 
 Eagerly crowding. Anon 
 With jubilant voices raised. 
 And singing, " Whm Israel canie 
 Out of Egypt," and whatso else 
 In thepsahn is written, they passed 
 Old of the ken of the land. 
 Over the far sea-line. 
 To the unknown region beyond. 
 
 ' Where are they now, then — they 
 That were borne out of sight by the ship — 
 Our brothers, of times gone by ? 
 Why have they left us here
 
 96 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Solein7i, dejected, alone, 
 Gathered i?i groups on the shore ? 
 Why ? For we, too, have gazed 
 Oer the waste of waters, aiid watched 
 For a sail as keenly as they. 
 Ah, tvretched men that we are! 
 On our haggard faces and brows 
 Aching, a wild h'eeze fawns 
 Full of the scents of the sea, 
 Redolent of regions beyond. 
 
 Why, then, tarries the ship ? 
 
 When will her white sail rise 
 
 Like a star on the sea-line ? When ? 
 
 ' When ? — And the answer comes 
 From the s allies s face of the sea, 
 " Ah, vain watchers, what boots 
 The calm of the evening 1 
 Have ye not watched through the day 
 Turbulent waves, the expanse 
 Endless, shaken with storm. 
 And ask ye 7V here is the ship ? 
 Deeper than phcmmet can dive 
 She is bedded deep in the ooze. 
 And over her tall mast floats 
 The purple plain of the calm'' 
 
 ' Yes — and never a ship 
 Since this is sunken, will come 
 Ever again o'er the waves — 
 Nay^ not even the craft with the fierce
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 97 
 
 Steer S7nan, hhn of the marsh 
 Livid J with wheels of flame 
 Circling his eyes, to smite 
 The li7igering sojd with his oar. 
 — I^ot that even. But we 
 Drop where we stand one by one 
 On the shingles and sands of time, 
 And cover in taciturn gloom, 
 With only perhaps some tear, 
 Each for his bi'other the hushed 
 Heart and the limitless dreams 
 With a little gift of sa?td.'' 
 
 * Thank you, Mr. Luke, so much,' said 
 Lady Ambrose. * How charming ! I am 
 always so fond of poems about the sea.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Mr. Luke, turning to Mrs. 
 Sinclair, 'these are emotions scarcely worth 
 describing.' 
 
 * Certainly not,' muttered Mr. Storks, half 
 aloud as he moved off to discover Lady 
 Grace. 
 
 Mr. Luke stood apart, and surveyed the 
 party with a look of pensive pity. On Mr. 
 Storks, however, whose last remark he had 
 overheard, his eyes rested with an expression 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 somewhat more contemptuous. The bright- 
 ening moonlight fell softly on the group 
 before him, giving it a particularly picturesque 
 effect, as it touched the many colours and 
 folds of the ladies' dresses, and struck here 
 and there a furtive flash from a gem on wrist 
 or throat. The tranquil hour seemed to 
 have a tranqulllising effect on nearly every- 
 one ; and the conversation reached Mr. 
 Luke's ears as a low murmur, broken only by 
 the deep sound of Mr. Stork's voice, and the 
 occasional high notes of Mr. Saunders, who 
 seemed to Mr. Luke, in his present frame of 
 mind, to be like a shrill cock, crowing to the 
 world before the sunrise of universal philis- 
 tinism. 
 
 Laurence meanwhile had caught Miss 
 Merton's eyes looking at him with a grave 
 regard ; and this had brought him instantly 
 to her side, when Mr. Luke had ended his 
 recital. 
 
 * We didn't spare the times we live in,
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 99 
 
 to-night, did we ? ' he said slowly to her in a 
 low voice. * Well, well — I wonder what it is 
 all coming to — we and our times together ! 
 We are certainly a curious medley here, all 
 of us. I suppose no age but ours could have 
 produced one like it — at least, let us hope so, 
 for the credit of the ages in general.' 
 
 ' I must say,' said Miss Merton, smiling, 
 ' that you seem to take to the age very kindly, 
 and to be very happy amongst your friends. 
 But you did not tell us very much of what 
 you thought yourself.' 
 
 * I don't often say what I think,' said 
 Laurence, * because I don t often know what I 
 think ; but I know a great many things that I 
 don't think ; and I confess I take a pleasure in 
 saying these, and in hearing others say them ; 
 so the society that I choose as a rule re- 
 presents not the things I think I approve, 
 but the things I am sure I repudiate.' 
 
 ' I confess,' said Miss Merton, ' I don't 
 quite understand that.' 
 
 H 2
 
 loo THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 * Shall I tell you,' said Laurence, * why I 
 live so much in society — amongst my friends, 
 as you call them ? Simply because I feel, in 
 my life, as a child does in a dark room ; and 
 I must have some one to talk to, or else I 
 think I should go mad. What one says is 
 little matter, so long as one makes a noise 
 of some sort, and forgets the ghosts that in 
 one's heart one is shuddering at' 
 
 Miss Merton was silent for a moment, and 
 looked up into the sky in which the stars 
 were now one by one appearing. 
 
 * I suppose,' she said presently, * you think 
 it is a very poor affair — life's whole business. 
 And yet I don't see why you should.' 
 
 ' Not see why I should ? ' repeated 
 Laurence. ' Ah, that shows how little you, 
 from your position, can sympathise with ours. 
 I am not surprised at it. Of course, it is out 
 of the question that you should. You, happy 
 in some sustaining faith, can see a meaning in 
 all life,, and all life's affections. You can endure
 
 BOOK L CHAPTER IV, loi 
 
 — you can even welcome its sorrows. The 
 clouds of ennui themselves for you have 
 silver linings. For your religion is a kind 
 of philosophers stone, turning whatever it 
 touches into something precious. But we — 
 we can only remember that for us too, things 
 had a meaning once ; but they have it no 
 longer. Life stares at us now, all blank and 
 expressionless, like the eyes of a lost friend, 
 who is not dead, but who has turned an idiot. 
 Perhaps you never read Clough's Poems, 
 did you ? Scarcely a day passes in which I 
 do not echo to myself his words : — 
 
 Ah well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved ! 
 
 Of all the creatures under heaven's wide cope, 
 AVe are most hopeless who had once most hope, 
 
 And most beliefless who had once beUeved.' 
 
 'And do you think,' said Miss Merton in 
 a low tone, * that belief in these days brings no 
 painful perplexities too ? Do you think that 
 we can look out on the state of the world 
 now, and think about its future, without
 
 I02 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 anxiety ? But really,' she went on, raising her 
 voice, ' if I, like you, thought that Christianity 
 was not true, I should not waste my time in 
 lamenting over it. I should rather be glad 
 that I had got free from a gigantic and awful 
 imposition/ 
 
 *What!' exclaimed Laurence, 'should we 
 rejoice at our old guide dropping dead 
 amongst the mountains, even though he had 
 lost his way ; if so we are left hopeless, and 
 without any guide at all ? ' 
 
 * You have your consciences,' said Miss 
 Merton, with some decision in her voice ; 
 ' you surely don't mean to say that you have 
 lost them ? ' 
 
 ' As for our consciences,' said Leslie, who 
 was standing close by, ' we revere them so 
 much that we fancy they possess some power. 
 But conscience, in most souls, is like an Eng- 
 lish Sovereign — it reigns, but It does not 
 govern. Its function is merely to give a formal 
 assent to the Bills passed by the passions ; and
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 103 
 
 it knows, if it opposes what those are really 
 bent upon, that ten to one it will be obliged to 
 abdicate.' 
 
 *Let us hope that the constitutions of 
 most souls are more stable than that,' said 
 Miss Merton. ' As far as morality goes, I 
 expect you have quite enough to guide you ; 
 and if you think religion false, I don't see why 
 its loss should trouble you. And life itself, 
 remember, has plenty of pleasures. It is full 
 of things worth living for.' 
 
 'Is it ? ' exclaimed Leslie with sudden 
 emphasis, and he looked into Miss Merton's 
 face with an expression half absent and half 
 wondering. ' Is there anything in life that 
 you really think is, for its own sake, worth 
 living for ? To me it seems that we are 
 haunted with the power of imagining that 
 there might be, and are pursued with the 
 knowledge that there never is. Look at that 
 lovely water before us, with its floods of moon- 
 light — how it ripples, how it sparkles away
 
 I04 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 into the distance ! What happiness sights like 
 these suggest to one. How happy they 
 might make us — might, but they never do. 
 They only madden us with a vague pain, that 
 is like the sense of something lost for ever/ 
 
 'Still,' said Miss Merton, 'life is not all 
 moonlight. Surely friendship and affection 
 are worth having.' 
 
 ' Let me beg you. Miss Merton,' said Leslie, 
 replying to her tone rather than to her words, 
 * not to think that I am always pining and 
 bemoaning myself. Fortunately the deeper 
 part of one's nature will often go to sleep, and 
 then the surface can enjoy itself. We can 
 even laugh with our lips at the very things 
 that our hearts in silence are breaking for. 
 But as for happiness, that is always like pro- 
 phecy, it is only fulfilled in the future ; or else 
 it is a miracle — it only exists in the past. 
 The actual things we wish for we may very 
 likely get, but they always come too late or 
 too soon. When the boy is in love, he tries
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 105 
 
 to feel like a man ; when the man is in love, 
 he tries to feel like a boy ; and both in vain.' 
 
 * Ah,' exclaimed Laurence, ' I think very 
 differently from that. I know,' he said, turn- 
 ing to Miss Merton, * that friendship and af- 
 fection are things worth having, and if only 
 pain and anxiety would leave me, I could 
 enjoy the taste of happiness.' 
 
 ' Could you ? ' said Leslie. * When I look 
 at what we are and what the world is, I can 
 fancy no more melancholy spectacle than a 
 happy man ; though I admit,' he added as he 
 moved slowly away, ' that there is none more 
 amusing than a man who tries to be melan- 
 choly.' 
 
 ' Leslie is oddly changed,' said Laurence, 
 * since I saw him last. / am distressed with 
 life because I cannot find out its worth. He is 
 indignant at it, it seems, because he thinks he 
 has found out its worthlessness. And yet — 
 I envy him his temperament. He never lets 
 any melancholy subdue him. He can always
 
 io6 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 laugh it down in a moment ; and he will 
 trample bravely on any of his sentiments if 
 he is on the road to anything he is proud of 
 aiming at' ' 
 
 Laurence was silent for a moment, and 
 then said abruptly : — 
 
 ' I dare say you think me very morbid ; but 
 perhaps you can hardly realise the intense rest- 
 less misery that a man endures when he can 
 find nothing to do which he really feels worth 
 doing. Could I only find some one thing — 
 one great cause to labour for — one great idea 
 — I could devote my whole self to it, and be 
 happy : for labour, after all, is the only thing 
 that never palls on a man. But such a cause, 
 such an idea — I can find it nowhere. Politics 
 have turned into a petty, weary game ; reli- 
 gion is dead. Our new prophets only offer us 
 Humanity, in place of the God of which they 
 have deprived us. And Humanity makes a 
 very poor Deity, since it is every day disgrac- 
 ing itself and is never of the same mind from
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 107 
 
 one week s end to another. And so here I am 
 utterly alone — friendless, and with nothing to 
 help me; feeling that, were it not for the 
 petty contemptible interests I manufacture 
 for myself from day to day, life would be 
 quite unbearable.' 
 
 * And yet,' said Miss Merton, ' you have 
 much to make you happy — much that you 
 would be sorry to lose.' 
 
 * I have a certain position,' said Laurence, 
 * and a certain amount of wealth, and I would 
 not willingly lose anything of either of these ; 
 but that is not because, in my heart, I value 
 them ; but because, if I lost them, I might in 
 my heart cease to despise them.' 
 
 ' Surely,' said Miss Merton, ' there is a 
 better way of looking at the matter. You 
 came into the world with all your lower am- 
 bitions satisfied for you. The ground there- 
 fore is quite clear for the higher ambitions. 
 That is why I think an aristocracy, as a rule, 
 must always be the best governors of men,
 
 lo8 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 for their ambitions, as a rule, are the only 
 genuine ones. Think, too, what an advantage 
 mere wealth is. The highest labour will never 
 produce money, but generally requires it.' 
 ' That is just the difficulty,' said Laurence, 
 
 * What shall I labour for ? I am almost 
 maddened sometimes, as I sit all the day idle, 
 and seem to hear the hateful wasted moments 
 slipping away from me. And I could do 
 something, I am sure. I feel I have powers.' 
 
 ' I think,' said Miss Merton, ' that all I 
 should say to you is, find something to do. 
 The power to find or make an object is, I 
 think, a great part of genius. However,* she 
 said, with some sympathy in her voice, ' if 
 you are in difficulties, I am sure I wish I 
 could help you.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Laurence in a subdued voice, 
 
 * I'm sure I beg your pardon for my egoism. 
 I never talked so long about myself in my 
 whole life before ; and I promise never to do 
 so again.'
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 109 
 
 Leslie meanwhile had moved away 
 towards Mrs. Sinclair, who, looking par- 
 ticularly fascinating, was still commanding 
 the attentions of Dr. Jenkinson. The Doctor 
 was standing by her, all deferent gallantry, 
 and, to Leslie's surprise, was saying something 
 to her about Sappho. 
 
 * And now,' said Mrs. Sinclair, with a 
 little appealing dainty smile, ' I want to ask 
 you something about the Greek Anthology 
 too. I can't read much Greek myself: 
 but a gentleman who used to be rather 
 kind to me, translated me a good deal of 
 Greek poetry, once upon a time — when my 
 husband,' she said, with a little shrug of 
 the shoulders, ' used to go to sleep after his 
 dinner.' 
 
 Dr. Jenkinson here glanced suspiciously 
 at Mrs. Sinclair. 
 
 * Now what I want you to tell me,' she 
 said, *is something about some little — ahem 
 — little love-songs, I think they were — ipcoriK-
 
 iro THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 something or other — I really can't pronounce 
 the name.' 
 
 The Doctor started. 
 
 * And, Dr. Jenkinson, please/ Mrs. Sinclair 
 went on in a voice of plaintive innocence, 
 'not to think me a terrible blue-stocking, 
 because I ask you these questions ; for I 
 really hardly know any Greek myself — except 
 perhaps a verse or two of the New Testa- 
 ment; and that's not very good Greek, I 
 believe, is it ? But the gentleman who 
 translated so much to me, when he came to 
 these little poems I speak of, was continually, 
 though he was a very good scholar, quite 
 unable to translate them. Now why should 
 that have been, I want to know ? Are Greek 
 love-poems very hard ? ' 
 
 'Well,' said the Doctor, stammering, yet 
 re-assured by Mrs. Sinclair's manner, 'they 
 were probably — your friend perhaps — well — 
 they were a little obscure perhaps — much 
 Greek is — or '
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. in 
 
 ' Corrupt ? ' suggested Mrs. Sinclair 
 naively. 
 
 The word was a simple one : but it 
 sufficed to work a miracle on Dr. Jenkinson. 
 For the first time in his life to a lady who 
 united the two charms of beauty and fashion, 
 to both of which he was eminently susceptible, 
 Dr. Jenkinson was rude. He turned abruptly 
 away, and staring hard at the moon, not at 
 Mrs. Sinclair, said simply ' I don't know,* 
 with the most chilling intonation of which 
 those words are capable. He then moved a 
 pace away, and sat down on a chair close to 
 Miss Merton. 
 
 Mrs. Sinclair turned to Leslie, with a 
 flash in her eyes of soft suppressed laughter. 
 
 ' How lovely the evening is !' murmured 
 Leslie responding to the smile. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Sinclair looking out 
 dreamily over the sea, ' it almost realises 
 one's idea of perfect beauty.' 
 
 * Really, Mrs. Sinclair,' said Leslie, ' you
 
 112 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 are certainly most Hellenic. First you talk 
 of Sappho, now of Ideas of Beauty. Are 
 you a Platonist ? ' 
 
 * Mr. Leslie, of course I am,' said Mrs. 
 Sinclair, somewhat misapprehending his 
 meaning. ' I never heard such an imperti- 
 nent question. Platonism, however, is a very 
 rare philosophy in these days, I'm afraid.' 
 
 ' Ah, and so you too think we are all of 
 us very bad, do you ? ' said Leslie. * It may 
 be so, of course ; and yet men at least, often 
 generalise very hastily, and very wrongly, I 
 am sure. How often, for instance, do we 
 say that all wives nowadays are inconstant, 
 simply because such are the only ones we 
 remember, not because they are the only 
 ones we know.' 
 
 This speech was quite in Mrs. Sinclair's 
 own manner, and she looked at Leslie with a 
 smile of appreciation half humorous and 
 half sentimental. 
 
 ' Ah,' she began to say, in a voice that
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 113 
 
 had just a touch of sadness in it, ' if we could 
 but all of us love only when we ought, and 
 where we ought — ' But here she paused. 
 Her voice died away, and she leaned her 
 head upon her hand in silence. 
 
 Leslie was going to have spoken ; but he 
 was suddenly arrested by the sound of Dr. 
 Jenkinson, close beside him, talking to Miss 
 Merton in a tone of unusual earnestness. 
 
 ' I don't wonder,' he was saying, ' that 
 you should feel in perplexity sometimes; 
 whichever way we look at things there will 
 be perplexities. But there is such a thing 
 as goodness ; and goodness in the end must 
 triumph, and so in this large faith let us 
 rest.' 
 
 'And,' said Donald Gordon in his soft 
 deferential voice, which always sounded as if 
 he was saying something deeply devotional, 
 * don't you think it is a higher thing to be 
 good for good's own sake than for God's ? 
 and, whatever men may believe about having 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 another life, and a beautiful heaven, with gold 
 streets, and with jewelled fortifications, don't 
 you think that morality really Is after all its 
 own reward ? ' 
 
 ' But what of those poor people,' said 
 Miss Merton, * who cannot be moral — whom 
 circumstances have kept from being ever 
 anything but brutalised ? I dare say,' she 
 said, turning to the Doctor, quite forgetting 
 his sacred character, ' that I shall hardly be 
 able to make you understand such a notion 
 as that of living for God s glory. But still, if 
 there be not a God for whose glory we can 
 live, and who in his turn will not leave us all 
 to ourselves, what then ? Think of all those 
 who, in spite of hard surroundings, have just 
 had strength enough to struggle to be good, 
 but to struggle only — whose whole moral 
 being has been left writhing in the road of 
 life, like an animal that a cart-wheel has gone 
 over, just lifting Its eyes up with a piteous 
 appeal at us who will not help it '
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 115 
 
 Miss Merton looked at Dr. Jenkinson and 
 paused. The moon shone tenderly on his 
 silver hair, and his keen eyes had something 
 very like moisture in them. 
 
 * Yes,' he said ; ' these are great, great 
 difficulties. But there is another life in store 
 for us — another life, and a God. And doRt 
 think that the world is growing to disbelieve 
 in these. Remember how many intelligent 
 laymen count themselves members of the 
 Church of England, simply because they 
 believe in these two doctrines.' 
 
 * It has always been inexplicable to me,' 
 said Mr. Storks, who had been attracted by 
 the sound of the Doctor's voice, * whence this 
 longing for a future life could have arisen. 
 I suppose there are few things the very- 
 possibility of which science so conclusively 
 disproves.' 
 
 * And yet,' said Laurence, who had been 
 
 speaking for a moment to Mrs. Sinclair, ' I 
 
 can't help thinking at certain times that there 
 1 2
 
 Ii6 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 may be a whole world of things undreamed 
 of by our scientific philosophy. Such a feeling 
 is touched by the sight of an '' Ora pro animi 
 mea," or a '' Resurgam," on a quiet tombstone, 
 or the sign of the cross made by a mother in 
 hope and in sorrow on the forehead of her 
 dead child.' 
 
 Miss Merton looked at Laurence with 
 some wonder in her large expressive eyes, 
 Mr. Storks snorted, and Dr. Jenkinson 
 blinked. 
 
 ' See,' said Donald Gordon, 'the moonlight 
 grows brighter and brighter every moment. 
 It is almost bewildering In its dazzling pale- 
 ness.' 
 
 ' And there,' said Laurence, * do you catch 
 it ? — that is the light-ship on the horizon, like 
 a large low star.' 
 
 Laurence seated himself on the balus- 
 trade, and, leaning on his elbow, looked up 
 into the clear hollow skies. 
 
 * World upon world,' he exclaimed at last,
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 117 
 
 ' and each one crowded, very likely, with 
 beings like ourselves, wondering what this 
 whole great universe is ! ' 
 
 * And the vast majority of them believing 
 in a wise and just God,' said Leslie, ' for I 
 see no reason why ours should be the stupid- 
 est world in all creation.' 
 
 * Yes,' said Laurence, * and in each world 
 a small select band, that has pierced through 
 such a husk of lies, and has discovered the 
 all-golden truth,, that the universe is aimless, 
 and that for good and evil the end is all 
 one.' 
 
 Dr. Jenkinson had a sensible horror of 
 the stars : and as soon as they were men- 
 tioned, he turned round in his chair, giving 
 his back to the group, Miss Merton included, 
 whilst Mr. Storks walked away, not without 
 dignity. 
 
 * Mrs. Sinclair is going to sing in a 
 moment,' said Laurence ; * some one is gone 
 to fetch her guitar.*
 
 ii8 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ' Hush ! ' exclaimed Miss Merton, * do 
 just listen to this.' 
 
 * Good gracious ! ' said Laurence in a 
 whisper, *Mr. Storks is at my aunt at 
 last/ 
 
 Mr. Storks had been watching ever since 
 dinner for an opportunity of discussing with 
 Lady Grace the true position of woman, as 
 settled by modern science. He was pecu- 
 liarly full of this subject just now, having 
 received only that morning a letter from a 
 celebrated American physician, who stated 
 very strongly as his opinion, that the strain 
 of what is called the higher education was 
 most prejudicial to the functions of maternity, 
 and that the rights of woman might very 
 probably be fatal to the existence of man. 
 As soon as he got hold of Lady Grace, he 
 led up to this point with startling rapidity ; 
 having been perfectly charmed at starting to 
 find that she fully agreed with him that the 
 prejudices of the presr/it day were doing
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 119 
 
 more harm to woman^s true interests than 
 anything else. 
 
 * It is a pleasure/ said Mr. Storks, * to dis- 
 cuss these matters with a person so thoroughly- 
 enlightened as yourself. You will of course 
 see from what Dr. Boston says how en- 
 tirely suicidal is the scheme of turning woman 
 into a female man. Nature has marked out 
 her mission for her plainly enough ; and so 
 our old friend Milton was right in his mean- 
 ing after all, when he says that man is made 
 for God, and woman for God through him, 
 though of course the expression is anti- 
 quated.* 
 
 ' Surely,' said Lady Grace with anima- 
 tion, * not only the expression is antiquated, 
 but the meaning also is contrary to all true 
 fairness and enlightment.' 
 
 ' I confess, I don't see that,' said Mr. 
 Storks with a look of smiling deference. 
 
 ' What ! ' cried Lady Grace, * is it not con- 
 trary to reason — let me put it to your own
 
 I20 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 candour — for a man who knows that his 
 wife, ages hence, will be a seraph singing be- 
 fore the throne of God, to consider her only 
 made for God through him — to consider her, 
 indeed, as a thing made simply for her hus- 
 band's use ? ' 
 
 This answer of Lady Grace's took Mr. 
 Storks quite aback. He knew not how to 
 comport himself His jaw fell — he stared — 
 he said nothing. He felt as though he had 
 been assassinated. But luckily at this very 
 moment, liquid and clear, and exquisitely 
 modulated, were heard the sounds of Mrs. 
 Sinclair's voice, singing the following 
 song — 
 
 Darling, can you endure the liquid weather^ 
 The jas7nine-sce7ited twilights^ oh my dear ? 
 
 Or do you still remember how together 
 We read the sad sweet Idyll ' Guinevere^ 
 Love, in one last year's twilight ? 
 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.^ 
 
 ^ Dante, Inferno, v. 137.
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 121 
 
 Ah^ the flowers smelt sweety and all unheeding 
 
 Did I read to you that tejider tale, 
 Oh my love, U7itil my voice, in reading 
 
 How those lovers greeted '•passion-pale^ 
 Trembled in the soft twilight. 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 The7i our eyes met, a?id then all was over — 
 
 All the world receded cold and far ; 
 And your lips were on my lips, my lover ; 
 
 And above us shook a silver star. 
 
 Through depths of melting twilight. 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 Darling, no Jicly will ever find us 
 
 On this earth, together, more. Our fates 
 Were but a moment cheated. Then, behind us 
 Shrilled his voice for whom Cdina ^ waits. 
 Shattering our one sweet twilight. 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 I shall hiow no more of summer weather, 
 Nought will be for me of glad or fair. 
 
 Till T join my darling, a?id together 
 We go for ever on the accursed air,^ 
 There in the dawnless twilight. 
 
 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse. 
 
 * What a lovely voice ! ' said Laurence to 
 
 * Dante, Inferno, v. 107. * Ibid. v. 31.
 
 122 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 Miss Merton. ' I wonder how she will sound 
 singing before the throne.' 
 
 * She will be obliged to take lessons In a 
 rather different style/ said Miss Merton, 
 unable to suppress a smile ; and then she 
 suddenly checked herself, and looked grave. 
 * Mrs. Sinclair has always interested me,' she 
 said. * I often come across her in London, 
 but I hardly know her.' 
 
 * Mr. Laurence,' said Mrs. Sinclair, * you 
 must now make Mr. Leslie sing, for I discover 
 that he can play the guitar too.' 
 
 Leslie was of course pressed, and with 
 some reluctance consented. 
 
 * I suppose,' he said, ' we are all of us 
 more or less moon-struck to-night, so I had 
 best sing the silliest thing I know ; and as I 
 don't think anything can be sillier than a song 
 I once wrote myself, I will sing that' 
 
 He touched a few chords carelessly, and 
 yet with the manner of a practised player ; 
 paused for a moment, and then again striking
 
 BOOK I. CHAPTER IV. 123 
 
 the instrument began to sing. He was 
 watched at first with merely a languid 
 curiosity ; and Miss Prattle whispered to 
 Lady Ambrose that his attitude was very 
 affected ; but curiosity and criticism were both 
 lost in surprise at the first sound of his rich 
 and flexible voice, and still more so at the 
 real passion which he breathed into the 
 following words, rude and artless as they 
 were : — 
 
 Oh, her cheek, her cheek was pale. 
 
 Her voice was hardly musical; 
 But your proud grey eyes grew tender, 
 
 Child, when ini7ie they met. 
 With a piteous self- surrender, 
 Margaret. 
 
 Child, what have I done to thee ? 
 
 Child, what hast thou done to me 1 
 How you froze me with your tone 
 
 That last day we 77iet I 
 Your sad eyes tJwi were cold as stone, 
 Margaret. 
 
 Oh, it all now seetns to me 
 A far-off weary mystery /
 
 124 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 Yet — and yet ^ her last sad frown 
 
 Awes me stilly and yet — 
 In vain I laugh your memory down^ 
 Margaret. 
 
 Leslie received loud thanks from many 
 voices, especially from Lady Ambrose. 
 Some, however, were almost silent from 
 surprise at the feeling, which he seemed quite 
 unconsciously to have betrayed. Mrs. Sinclair 
 held out her hand to him, when no one was 
 looking, and said quietly, ' Thank you so 
 much, I can't tell you how I like your song.' 
 
 * Well,' said Laurence, as the party moved 
 indoors into the lighted drawing-room, *we 
 have been all of us very sentimental to-night, 
 and if we can't get better now, I hope we 
 shall sleep it off, and wake up well and sane 
 to-morrow morning.' 
 
 The following being Sunday there arose 
 some vague mention of church. The nearest 
 church however was some miles distant, and 
 a rumour arose amongst the guests that Dr. 
 Jenkinson would perform the service and 
 preach a sermon in the private chapel.
 
 BOOK II.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 N the following morning Lady 
 Ambrose awoke somewhat out 
 of spirits. Last night, whilst her 
 maid was brushing her hair, she had pondered 
 deeply over much that she had heard during 
 the evening ; and her thoughts having been 
 once started in such a direction, the convic- 
 tion quickly dawned upon her that the world 
 was indeed becoming very bad, and that 
 society was on the point of dissolution. This 
 was quite a new view of things to her, and it 
 had all the charm of novelty. Still, however, 
 she would probably have found by the morn-
 
 128 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 ing that she had successfully slept it off, if the 
 post had not failed to bring her an invitation 
 
 to the Duchess of 's garden-party at 
 
 House, which she was expecting with 
 
 some anxiety. As it was, therefore, her 
 spirits failed to recover themselves, and 
 whilst she was being dressed her thoughts 
 wandered wistfully away to the promised 
 morning service in the chapel. At breakfast, 
 however, another blow awaited her. How 
 a private chapel had come to be mentioned 
 last evening was not clear. Certainly there 
 was no such appendage to Laurence's villa, 
 and the susceptibilities of Lady Ambrose 
 received a severe shock, as she learnt that the 
 ministrations of Dr. Jenkinson, the comfort of 
 which she was looking forward to, were to 
 take place in the theatre which adjoined the 
 house. She bore up, however, like a brave 
 woman, and resolving that nothing, on her part 
 at least, should be wanting, she appeared 
 shortly before eleven o'clock, in full Sunday
 
 BOOK TI. CHAPTER 1. 129 
 
 costume, with her bonnet, and her books of 
 devotion. 
 
 Mrs. Sinclair looked at her in dismay. 
 * I had thought,' she said plaintively to 
 Laurence, ' that as this was only a morning 
 performance, I need not make a toilette. 
 And as for a prayer-book, why, dear Mr. 
 Laurence, I have not had one since I was 
 confirmed.' 
 
 * Not when you were married ? ' said 
 Leslie. 
 
 ' Perhaps,' said Mrs. Sinclair pensively, 
 ' but I have forgotten all about that now.' 
 
 At this moment the gong sounded, and 
 the whole party. Lady Ambrose and her 
 bonnet amongst them, adjourned to the place 
 of worship, which was connected with the 
 house by a long corridor. 
 
 When the party entered they found them- 
 selves in a complete miniature theatre, with 
 the gas, as there were no windows, fully 
 burning. 1 1 had been arranged beforehand that 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 I30 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 the guests should occupy the boxes, the gallery 
 being appropriated to the servants, whilst 
 the stalls were to remain completely empty. 
 The congregation entered with great decorum 
 and gradually settled themselves in their 
 places with a subdued whispering. Lady 
 Ambrose burled her face in her hands for a 
 few moments, and several of the younger 
 ladies followed her example. Everyone 
 then looked about them silently, in suspense 
 and expectation. The scene that met their 
 eyes was certainly not devotional. The 
 whole little semicircle glittered with heavy 
 gilding and with hangings of crimson satin, 
 and against these the stucco limbs of a 
 number of gods and goddesses gleamed pale 
 and prominent. The gallery rested on the 
 heads of nine scantily-draped Muses, who, 
 had they been two less in number, might have 
 passed for the seven deadly sins ; round the 
 frieze In high relief reeled a long procession 
 of Fauns and Bacchanals ; and half the harem
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 131 
 
 of Olympus sprawled and floated on the azure 
 ceiling. Nor was this all. The curtain was 
 down ; and brilliantly illuminated as it was, 
 displayed before the eyes of the congregation 
 Faust on the Brocken, with a long plume, 
 dancing with the young witch, who could 
 boast of no costume at all. The scene was 
 so strange that everyone forgot to whisper or 
 even to smile. There was a complete silence, 
 and the eyes of all were soon fixed upon the 
 curtain in wonder and expectation. 
 
 Presently a sound was heard. A door 
 opened, and Dr. Jenkinson, in his ordinary 
 dress, entered the stalls. He looked delibe- 
 rately round him for a moment, as though he 
 were taking stock of those present ; then, 
 selecting the central stall as a kind of prie- 
 DieUy he knelt down facing his congrega- 
 tion, and after a moment's pause began to 
 read the service in a simple, earnest voice. 
 Lady Ambrose, however, though she knew 
 her prayer-book as well as most women, could 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 not for the life of her find the place. The 
 reason was not far to seek. The Doctor had 
 begun with the following passage from the 
 Koran, which he had once designed to use in 
 Westminster Abbey as the text of a mis- 
 sionary sermon. 
 
 ' Be constant in prayer,' he began, in a 
 voice tremulous with emotion, ' and give alms : 
 and what good ye have sent before for your 
 souls, ye shall find it with God. Surely God 
 seeth that which ye do. They say. Verily 
 none shall see Paradise except they be Jews 
 or Christians. This is their wish. Say ye. 
 Produce your proof of this if ye speak truth. 
 Nay, but he who resigneth himself to God, 
 and doeth that which is right, he shall have 
 his reward with his Lord ; there shall come 
 no fear on them, neither shall they be 
 grieved.' ^ 
 
 Dr. Jenkinson then went on to the Con- 
 
 ^ Koran, chap. ii. Sale's Translation.
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 133 
 
 fession, the Absolution, and a number of 
 other selections from the English morning 
 service, omitting, however, the creed, and 
 concluded the whole with a short prayer of 
 St. Francis Xavier's. 
 
 But it was discovered that his voice, un- 
 less he made an effort, was unhappily only 
 partly audible from the position which he 
 occupied ; and Laurence, as soon as the 
 Liturgy was over, went softly up to him to ap- 
 prise him of the fact. Dr. Jenkinson was very 
 grateful for being thus told in time. It was 
 fortunate, he said, that the prayers only had 
 been missed ; the question was, where should 
 he go for the sermon. Laurence in a diffi- 
 dent manner proposed the stage ; but the 
 Doctor accepted the proposal with great 
 alacrity, and Laurence went immediately out 
 with him to conduct him to his new pulpit. 
 In a few moments the curtain was observed to 
 twitch and tremble ; two or three abortive pulls 
 were evidently being made ; and at last P'aust
 
 134 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 and the young witch rapidly rolled up, and 
 discovered first the feet and legs, and then 
 the entire person of Doctor Jenkinson stand- 
 ing in the middle of a gorge in the Indian 
 Caucasus — the remains of a presentation of 
 Prometheus Bound which had taken place last 
 February. 
 
 The Doctor was not a man to be abashed 
 by incongruities. He looked about him for 
 a moment : he slightly raised his eyebrows, 
 and then, without the least discomposure, and 
 in a clear incisive voice, began : — 
 
 ' In the tenth verse of the hundred and 
 eleventh Psalm, it is said, '' The fear of the 
 Lord is the beginning of wisdom." ' The fear 
 of the Lord,' he again repeated, more slowly, 
 and with more emphasis, surveying the 
 theatre as he spoke, ' is the beginning of 
 wisdom.' 
 
 He then made a long pause, looking down 
 at his feet, as if, although he held his sermon- 
 book in his hand, he were considering how to
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER /. 135 
 
 begin. As he stood there silent, the footlights 
 shining brightly on his silver hair, Lady 
 Ambrose had full time to verify the text in 
 her prayer-book. At last the Doctor sud- 
 denly raised his head, and with a gentle 
 smile of benignity playing on his lips, shook 
 open his manuscript, and thus proceeded : — 
 
 * The main difficidty that occupied the early 
 Greek Philosophers, as soon as philosophy in 
 its proper sense can be said to have begun, was 
 the great dualism that seemed to ru7i through 
 all things. Matter and mind, the presence of 
 imperfection, and the idea of perfection, or the 
 unity a7id plurality of being, were amongst the 
 varioiLs forms in which the two contradictory 
 elements of things were presented to them, 
 as demanding reconcilement or explanation. 
 This manner of viewing things cornes to a 
 /lead, so to speak, amongst the ancients, in the 
 system of Plato. With him the sensible and 
 the intelligible worlds stand separated by a 
 great gulf the one C07itaining all good, the
 
 136 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 other of itself only evil, imtil we recognise its 
 relation to the good, and see that it is only a 
 shadow and a type of it. The world of real 
 existence is sonnet hing outside^ and virtually 
 unconnected with, this world of 7nere phe- 
 nomena ; and the Platonic prayer is that we 
 should be taken out of the world, rather than, 
 as Christ says, with a fuller wisdom, that we 
 should be delivered from the evil. 
 
 ' Plato had, however, by thtts dwelling on 
 this antagonism in things, paved the way for 
 a reconciliation — some say he even himself began 
 it. At any rate, it was through him that it 
 was nearly, if not qtcite, accomplished by his 
 discip le A r is to tie. A r is to tie first systematised 
 the great p7nnciple of evolution, and trans- 
 formed what had appeared to former thinkers 
 as the dualism of mind a7id matter into a single 
 scale of asce7iding existences. Tims what 
 Plato had conceived of as two worlds, were now 
 presented as opposite poles of the same. The 
 TrpwTT) vXrj, the world " without form a7id void','
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER I. 137 
 
 receiving form, at length culminated in the 
 soilI of man ; and in the soul of man sensation 
 at length culminated in pure thought! A 
 slight cough here escaped from Mrs. Sinclair. 
 ' You will perhaps think! the Doctor went on, 
 * that a sermon is not the place in which to 
 discuss such differences of secular opinion ; or 
 you, will perhaps think that such differences 
 are of no ve^y great mojnent. But if yotc look 
 under the surface, and at the hiner meaning of 
 the^n, yotc will fnd that they bear upon qties- 
 tions which are, or ought to be, of the very 
 highest moment to each of tcs — questio7is in- 
 deed, the Doctor added, suddenly lowering his 
 manuscript for a moment, and looking sharply 
 round at his audience, ' which we all of us here 
 have very lately — very lately indeed — either 
 disctissed ourselves, or heard discussed by others! 
 This produced an immediate sensation, es- 
 pecially amongst the feminine part of the 
 listeners, to whom the discourse thus far had 
 seemed strange, rather than significant. ' The
 
 138 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 questio7i' the doctor continued, 'is one of the 
 relations of the spiritual to the natiiral ; and 
 the opposition between the views of these two 
 ancient philosophers is by no means obsolete in 
 our own century. There is even now far too 
 prevalent a tendency to look tLpon the spiritual 
 as something tra7iscending and completely 
 separate from the natter al ; and there is in the 
 minds of many well-meaning and earnest 
 persons a sort of alarm, felt at any attempt to 
 bring the two into connection. This feeling 
 is expeidenced not by Christians only^ but by a 
 large member of their opponents. There is, for 
 instance, no doctrine moi^e often selected for 
 attack by those who oppose Christianity upon 
 moral grounds, than that of which my text is 
 an expression, I mean the doct7Hne of a morality 
 enforced by rewards a7id punishments. Such 
 morality, we hear it contimtally ttrged by men 
 who set themselves ttp as adva?iced thinkers, is 
 no morality at all. No action can be good, 
 they tell us^ that docs not spring fro77i the love
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER L 139 
 
 of good. Virhce is no longer virtue if it 
 springs from fear. The very essence of it is 
 to spring from freedo7n. Now, these argu- 
 ments, though speciotis at the first blush of the 
 thing, are really, if we look them honestly in 
 the face, to the utmost shallow and tinphiloso- 
 phical. They are really but so viany denials 
 of the great doctrine of evolution — so many at- 
 tempts to set tip again t/iat absolute antagonisrn 
 between good and evil which it has been the aim 
 of all the higher thinkers, and of Christ him- 
 self to do away with. If then, these m^odern 
 critics of Christianity come to tis with such 
 objections, let us not try to disguise the truth 
 that the morality of our religion is based on 
 fear. Let us rather boldly avow this, and tiy 
 to point out to tJiem that it is they, and not the 
 Psalmist, that are out of harmony with modern 
 thought. For what is it that the sacred Scrip- 
 tm^e says ? " The fear of the Lord is the 
 beginning of wisdom!' The begiftning, you 
 will please to observe — the beginning only. It
 
 HO THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 is 7iot perfect wisdom, it is not perfect virtue ; 
 bitt it IS the beginning of both of these. It is, 
 if I may be allowed the expression, the moral 
 protoplasm — it is that out of which they are 
 both evolved. It is, as Aristotle would call it, 
 their potentiality. The actuality is different 
 from the potentiality ; for ''perfect love'' as St. 
 John says, ** caste th out fear!' Putting toge- 
 ther, then, the ideas of these two good men, St. 
 yohn and Aristotle, we may say that the love 
 of God — that is, true wisdom — is the actuality 
 of the fear of Him. 
 
 * This account of the origin of the true 
 wisdoin may not, indeed, be applicable to each 
 individual case. Some persons ' — the doctor s 
 voice here grew very soft, and seemed as 
 though it would almost break with feeling — 
 ' some persons may have been so fortunate as 
 to have received the truest zvisdom into their 
 hearts by education, almost with their mother s 
 milk. But there are those not so fortunate, 
 who may have needed the discipline of a godly
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 141 
 
 /ear to lead them upwards front a " wallowing 
 in the sensual sty',' towards the higher life. 
 And just as this is true of many of us indivi- 
 dually, so it is still more deeply trtte of the 
 human race as a whole. All study of history, 
 and of social science, and of philosophy, is teach- 
 ing this to us every day with increasing clear- 
 ness. The human race, as soon as it became 
 human, feared God before it loved Him. Its 
 fear, as tfie Scripttcre puts it, was the beghmifig 
 of its wisdom ; or as modern thought has put 
 it, iri slightly different words, the love of 
 justice sprang otct of the fear of suffering i^i- 
 justice. Thus the efid is different from the 
 beginning, and yet springs out of it. Ethics, 
 as it has been well said, are the finest fruits 
 of humanity, but they are not its roots. Our 
 reverence for truth, all oitr sacred family ties, 
 and the purest and most exalted forms of matri- 
 monial attachment, have each their respective 
 origins in self interest, self-preservation, and 
 animal appetite.
 
 142 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 ' There is, I admit, in this truth soinething 
 that may at first sight repel us, and perhaps 
 even prompt some of 2cs to deny, indignantly 
 that it is a truth at all. But this is really a 
 cowardly and tmworthy feeling, fatal to any 
 true comprehension of God's dealings with 
 man, and arising from a quite 77iistaken con- 
 ception of our own dignity, and our own con- 
 nection with God. It is some such mistaken 
 conception as this that sets so many of us 
 against the discoveries of modern science as to 
 the origin of our own species, and, what is far 
 worse, prompts us to oppose such discoveries 
 with dishonest objections. How is it possible, 
 some of us ask, that man with his sublime con- 
 ceptions of duty and of God, and his fine ap- 
 paratus of reason, and so forth, should be pro- 
 duced by any process of evolution from a beastly 
 and irrational ape f But to ask such questions 
 as these is really to call in question the power 
 of God, and so to do Him dishonour. It is 
 true that we cannot trace out, as yet, all the
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER 1. 143 
 
 steps of this wonderful evolution ; but let us 
 not be founds like doubting Thomas, resolved 
 not to believe until we Jiave actually seen. And 
 yet, if our faith does indeed require strengthen 
 ing, we have only to look a little more attentively 
 at the commonest facts before us. For is it not, 
 let me ask you — to take, for instance, a ma7is 
 sublime faculty of reasoning and logical com- 
 prehension — far more wonderful that a reason- 
 ing man shotild have the same parents as a 
 woman, than that they both should have the 
 same parents as a monkey? Science and re- 
 lio-ion both alike teach us that with God all 
 things are possible. 
 
 ' I just totich in passing upon this doctrine 
 that we popularly call Darwinism, because it 
 is the most familiar example to us of the doc- 
 trine of evolution. But the point which I am 
 wishing to emphasise is not the outward evolu- 
 tion of 7nan, but the inward, of which, however, 
 the former is an image a7id a likeness. This 
 theory of moral evolution I wish to point out
 
 144 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 to you, is alike the Christian and the scientific 
 theory ; and I thus wish yott to see that the 
 very points in which science seems most opposed 
 to Christianity are really those in which it 
 most fundamentally agrees with it. I will 
 therefore just ask you to notice how foolish and 
 short-sighted those persons are who think that 
 a great result is lessened if it caiz be proved to 
 have had small beginnings. Is a state less 
 truly a state because we know that it has sprung 
 out of the germ of the family f Surely not. 
 Neither is man less truly man if he have sprung 
 from an ape ; nor is love less truly love if it 
 has sprung from fear. 
 
 And so now, since we have seen how science 
 and Christianity are at one as to the rise of the 
 moral sentiments, I will pass on to a wider 
 point, the character and the history of Christi- 
 anity itself both of which have been misunder- 
 stood and misinterpreted for at least eighteen 
 hundred years ; and when I have pointed out 
 how this great subject is being now explained
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER I. 145 
 
 by the methods of modern science, I will pass 
 on to an issue that is wider yet, 
 
 ' The world has hitherto failed to under- 
 stand Christianity, because it studied it upon 
 a false method — a method based upon that old 
 dualistic theory of things of which I have 
 already spoken. J test as Plato looked upon 
 Tnind as entirely distinct from Tnatter, so used 
 Christians to look upon things sacred as en- 
 tirely distinct from things secular. But now 
 this middle wall of partition is being broken 
 down by science, and by scientific criticism, and 
 by a wider view of things i^i general. The 
 primary way in which all this Jtas affected 
 Christianity, is by the new spirit in which it 
 has led us to study the Bible. We used to 
 look upon the Bible as a book standing apart 
 by itself, and to be interpreted by a peculiar 
 canon of criticism. BtU we Imve now learnt 
 that it is to be studied just like all other books ; 
 and we are now for the first time coming to 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 understand what, in its true grandeur, a real 
 revelation is. We are learning, in fact, that 
 just as no single scripture ''is of any private 
 interpretation ; " still less is the entire body of 
 the Scriptures. They, too, must be interpreted 
 by their context. We must inquire into their 
 origin; we must ask diligently under what 
 circumstances they were written and edited, 
 and for what ends. Nor jnust we ever again 
 fall into such quaint and simple mistakes as 
 did commentators like OiHgen, or Augustine, 
 or Tertullian, or even Paid hifnself whose dis- 
 coveries of Messianic prophecies in writings 
 like the Psalms for instance, are really much 
 the same as would be a discovery on our part in 
 Mr. Te7iny son's line on the death of the Duke of 
 Wellington, '' The last great Englishman is 
 low," a prophecy of the late Chancellor of the 
 Excheqtier. But to tmderstand the meaning 
 of any text, we must try to see what from 
 his position and education, the writer could 
 have meant by it ; not zvhat this or that Father,
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 147 
 
 living long afterwards ^ fancied that he meant. 
 Otir motto in religion, as in science, should be, 
 " Vere scire est per causas scire. ^' 
 
 ' If we study Christianity revere7itly and 
 careftdly Mp07i these prijiciples, we shall see 
 that it was not a thing that sprang tip, as we 
 used to fancy, without any human antecedents^ 
 but that its roots reach back with many ramifi- 
 cations into the western and oriental thought 
 of precedi7ig centuries. We shall see how it 
 absorbed into itself all that was highest in 
 Hebraistic Theism and in Hellenic thought — 
 something too, let us admit, of the failings of 
 both. I cannot here enter into any of the 
 details of this, what may be truly te7^med pre- 
 Christian Christianity. I can only briefly 
 point out its existence, and its double origin, 
 commenting on these by the following few lines 
 from a great German writer. '' The yearning 
 after a higher revelation'' he tells us, '* was the 
 universal characteristic of the last centuries 
 of the ancient world. This was in the first
 
 148 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 place but a consciousness of the decline of the 
 classical nations and their culture^ and the 
 presentiment of the approach of a new era ; 
 and it called into life not only Christianity, 
 but also, and before it, Pagan and Jewish 
 Alexandrianism, a^id other related develop- 
 ments T 
 
 * This, then, is the great point to be borne 
 in mind — viz. that God had been preparing the 
 way for the coming of Christ long before he 
 sent '' Elias, which was for to beT Neither 
 John Baptist, no, nor One greater than John, 
 was left by God (as the children of Israel were 
 left by PharaoJi) to gather straw himself to 
 m,ake bricks. The materials were all prepared 
 ready to their hands by their Heavenly Father. 
 And so, let us be especially and prayerfully on 
 our guard against considering Christianity as 
 having come into the world at once, ready-made., 
 so to speak, by our Saviour, as a body of theo- 
 logical doctrines. Any honest study of history 
 will show us that the Apostles received no such
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 149 
 
 system ; that our Lord Himself never made 
 any claivi to the variotis characters with which 
 subsequent thought invested Him ; and that to 
 a 'trihUe such clai^ns to Him would be an an- 
 achronism, of which He would Himself have 
 scarcely understood the meaning. If we only 
 clear our eyes of any false theological glamour, 
 a very slight study of the inspired writers will 
 at once show us this. We shall see how un- 
 certain and shifting at first everything was. 
 We shall see what a variety of conflicting 
 opinions the early Church entertai7ied even 
 upon the most ftmdamental subjects — such, for 
 instance, as the identity of the God of the Old 
 Testament with the God of the New, which 
 was denied by a large number of the early 
 Christians : we shall see how widely divergent 
 were the systems of Jewish and Pauline 
 Christianity, and how discrepant and ten- 
 tative are the accoujtts givefi by St. Pattl and 
 by the author of the Fourth Gospel of the 
 mystical nature of Christ, whom they tried to
 
 I50 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 identify with different mysterious potencies 
 supposed by tJie y ewish- Alexandrian philoso- 
 phers to be coexistent with God. And if we 
 pursue the history of the Chui^ch a little farther ^ 
 we sliall find many more things to startle us. 
 We shall find, for instance, the most renowned 
 apologist of early Catholic times, a 7naterialist, 
 holding the ^nateriality not of the soul of man 
 only, but of God also. '' Nihil enifn " — these 
 are this father s words — '' si non corpus. Onine 
 quod est, corpus est! Thus we see! said the 
 Doctor cheerfully, looking round him with a 
 smile of benignant triumph, and blinking with 
 his eyes, ' that differeiice of opinion about the 
 dogmas of religion is nothing new. It existed 
 in the Jewish Church; the phenomenon was 
 only pi^olonged by Christianity. Later 
 Judaism and pri77titive Christia7iity were both 
 made up of a vainety of systems, all ho7iestly 
 a7td boldly thought out, differing widely f 7^0771 
 each other, a7id called by the honourable appella- 
 tion of heresies : a7id of these, let 77ie re77ii7id
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER I. 151 
 
 yoti, it is the glory of the Church of England 
 to be composed likewise. 
 
 ' Nor is this all! he went on in a softer 
 and more appealing tone ; ' not only are 
 all these things so conftcsed and doubtful ; 
 but we now see t/mt, in the face of recent criti- 
 cism, we can?iot even be quite sure about any of 
 tJie details of the divine life of our Lord. But 
 in all this ' — the Doctor s voice here became 
 still more aerial, and he fixed his eyes upon 
 the painted ceiling of the theatre, as though 
 he were gazing on some glorious vision — ' in 
 all this there is nothing to discompose us. We 
 can be guite stcre that He lived, and that He 
 went about doing good, and that in him we have, 
 in the highest sense, everlasting life. 
 
 ' Let us then no longer fight against the 
 conchisiofis of science and of criticism, but 
 rather see in them the hajtd of God driving us, 
 even against our will, away from beliefs and 
 teachhigs that are not really those of His son. 
 If we do not do this — if we persist in identify-
 
 152 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ing the false Christianity with the true — the 
 false, when it is at last plucked rtidely away 
 from us, as it must be, will carry away a part 
 of the trtce with it. And as long as we are in 
 this state of mind, we are never for a fnoment 
 safe. We can never open a philological review, 
 or hear of a scientific experiment, without 
 trembling. Witness the discussiofis now en- 
 gaging so much public attention on the sub- 
 ject of animal automatism, and the marvellous 
 results which experiments 07i living subjects 
 have of late days revealed to us ; a frog with 
 half a brain having destroyed 7nore theology 
 than all the doctors of the Chicrch with their 
 whole brains can ever build tip again. Thus 
 does God choose the " weak things of this world 
 to confound the wise.'' Seeing then, that this 
 ts the state of the case, we should surely learn 
 henceforth not to identify Christianity with 
 anything that science can assail, or even ques- 
 tion. Let us say rather that nothing is or can 
 be essential to the religion of Christ which.
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I, 153 
 
 when once stated, ca7t be denied without 
 absurdity. If we ca7i only attain to this con- 
 ception, we shall see truly that this our faith is 
 indeed one " that no man taketh away from us!' 
 'If we be thus once 'Established in the 
 faith',' all human history, afid the history of 
 Christianity especially, will assume for tis a 
 new sacredness and a new significance. We 
 shall recognise gladly its long struggles of 
 growth, and its struggles for existence, and see 
 how in all these were at wo7'k the great prin- 
 ciples of evolution. We shall see how Christian 
 perfection emerged gradually out of imper- 
 fection — nay, that it was only through imper- 
 fection that this perfection was possible. For 
 although, as we now know, all the various 
 theological systems that have sprung up about 
 Christianity, and have bee7i so long ctirrefit, 
 are not Christianity, are most of them, htdeed, 
 not even sense — yet it was through these that 
 true Christianity made its way, and extended 
 itself in a corrupt and ignorant world. For
 
 154 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 the world has been given from age to age just 
 so much of the truth as it has been able to bear, 
 and it is only, let us remember, from, receiving 
 it tempered in this wise proportion, that it has 
 been able to receive it at all But these times 
 of the world' s probation are now passing away. 
 It is now at length ceasing to be under " tutors 
 and governors ;''' it is learning to ^' put away 
 childish things!' It is coming to a sense that 
 it is now fitted to receive Christ's truth pure, 
 and without any admixture or wrappage of 
 falsehood. And so, as it looks back over all the 
 various opinions once so fiercely agitated about 
 religion, it recognises in all of them a common 
 element of good, and it sees that all theologians 
 and all sects have really agreed with one 
 another, and been meaiiing the same thing, 
 even zuhen they least suspected or wished it. 
 Nor is it, as modern study is showing us, 
 varieties of Christianity only that this deeper 
 tmity tmderlies, but all other religions also. 
 It has been zuell observed by a gj^eat Roman
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER I. . 155 
 
 Catholic writer now livings that whenever afiy 
 great saintliness of life is to be observed 
 amongst infidels and heretics, it is always 
 found to be due to the presence of certain beliefs 
 and rules which belong to the Catholics, A nd 
 i7i like manner, we may say too, that w/ienever 
 any great saintliness of life is to be obse^^ved 
 a^nongst Catholics, it is dtte to the presence of 
 certahi beliefs and rtiles that belong to the 
 infidels ajid the heretics — and indeed to all 
 good men, no matter what their religion is. 
 
 * Such are the views that all the most e7i' 
 lightened men of otir own day are coming to. 
 But the process is gradtcal ; and meanwhile let 
 ns not rebuke ottr weaker brethren, if for the 
 prese7it '' tliey follow not after us ;'' let us 
 rather bear with them., and make all allowance 
 for them ; for we mtcst remefnber, as I have 
 said before, that those evils to which they still 
 cling, but from which we, under God's mercy, 
 are tryi7ig to free otcr selves, have do7ie good 
 service i7i their time; a7id that eve7i sitch
 
 156 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 doctrines as those of eternal ptmislmient, or of 
 sacerdotal absohUion, or the sitbtleties of sacra- 
 mental systems, or the mystical paradoxes of 
 the Athanasian Creed, have assisted in the 
 evolution of the good — have been, hi some sense, 
 ^^schoolmasters to bring me7i to God!' And 
 even if we do occasio7ially come across some 
 incident in the history of otir religion — so7?ie 
 doctrine or body of doctrines, which seems, 
 hiunanly speaking, to subserve no good end at 
 all — siLch as our own Thirty -nine Articles — 
 let us not suffer stich to try our faith, but let 
 lis trust hi God, believing that in His secret 
 councils He has found some fitting ttse even for 
 these ; because we know hoiv many things there 
 are, in every branch of inquiry, that we cannot 
 explain, and yet we know that nothing happciis 
 but by those immutable and eternal laws which 
 our Heavenly Father has Himself ordained, 
 and of which He is Himself the highest 
 synthesis. 
 
 * And noWy said the Doctor, with a fresh
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER L 157 
 
 briskness In his voice, * / shall pass on to that 
 wider point to which I have already alluded, 
 which is indeed that which I wish chiefly to 
 impress up07i you, and to which all that I Jiave 
 hitherto said has been preparatory. We have 
 come to see how genuine Christianity Jias been 
 enabled to grow and extend itself only through 
 an admixture of what we now recognise as evil. 
 And seeing this, we shall be led on to a con- 
 clusion that is much wider. It has been said 
 that it is the part of the devil to see in good the 
 germs of evil. Is it not also the part of the 
 devil 710 1 to recognise in evil the germs of good? 
 May we not indeed say with St. Atigiistine, 
 that absolute evil is impossible, becaitse, if we 
 look at it rightly, it is always rising up into 
 good? And so, may we not recognise in 
 all things the presence, and the providence of 
 God? 
 
 ' Perhaps this view may at first sight seem 
 difficult. Some of us may fi^td that we have a 
 certain amount of pride to swallow before we
 
 158. THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 caii cheerfully acquiesce in it. It is not an 
 unco7ninon tiling to find persons who secretly 
 flatter their vanity by cherishing a gloomy view 
 of the world and of mankind. But if we can 
 only get free from these littlenesses y and attai7i 
 to that view which I have indicated, it will e7i- 
 largc and ameliorate our own philosophy of 
 things, and bring life and trust to us, in the 
 place of doubt a^id despondency. Evil will 
 then appear to us simply as undeveloped good 
 — as something which zue may acquiesce in 
 without complaining — as so^nethhtg that has 
 assisted in the development of whatever is 
 good in the present, and zuhich zuill itself one 
 day become good in the fiture. Indeed it is 
 not too 7nuch to say that all things, in a certai7t 
 sense, existed first in the for7n of evil. It was 
 not till after the Spirit of God had worked 07i 
 the primeval m^atter that God pro7iounced the 
 world to be *' ve7y good!' 
 
 ^ And so, if we co7isidcr the subject thus, 
 we shall lea7'7i to put a stop to all those fretful
 
 BOOK II. CHATTER I. 159 
 
 wailings over the badness of ottr own times of 
 which we hear so much — wailings over the ten- 
 belief of otLr neighbours, the corruption of 
 society, the misery of the poor, the luxtiry of 
 the rich, or the decline of commercial morality. 
 The prese7it is an age of change, and is there- 
 fore at every ttirn presenting to tcs some new 
 feature. But if these co7ne to tcs in the 
 apparent guise of evils, let us not uselessly 
 bemoan them ; but let zis believe that they are, 
 even if we cannot see that it is so, but the 
 beginnings, the embryos of new good. Indeed, 
 by the eye of faith, even in the pi^esent day, 
 may be discerned the beautiful spectacle of good 
 actually shifting through evil. May we not, 
 for instance, discern the well-being of tJie rich 
 through the misery of the poor f and again, 
 the honest industry of the poor through the 
 idleness of the rich ? 
 
 ' If then these things be so, sttrely we may 
 look on unmoved at the great changes and com- 
 motions that are goifig on around us, and the
 
 l6o THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 new forms that society^ and thought, and 
 politics are assuming, even although for the 
 7noment they may appear threatening. And 
 if in this great storm our Master have fallen 
 asleep, and no longer speak audibly to us, let 
 us not be of little faith and fearful, and try to 
 awaken Him with our foolish clamou7^s ; but 
 let us trust all to Him, a7id follow His ex- 
 ample. For really, if we do but trust in Gody 
 there is no ground for fear, but '' all things 
 work together for good to him that believeth." 
 And, however the matter 7nay strike tcs at first 
 sight, the ti7nes we live in are really the times 
 that are best fitted for tcs ; and we shall see, if 
 we will but thi7ik soberly, that we could not, as 
 a whole, alter anything in them for tlie better. 
 I do not 7nea7i that we Jmve 7iot each of 7ts his 
 own work 7narked out for him to do ; but all 
 this work is strictly in relation to thi7igs as 
 they are. God has given to tcs the general 
 conditio7is U7ider which we are to serve Hi77t, 
 and these are the best a7id indeed the 07ily con-
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER I. i6i 
 
 ditions for us. Dotcbtless, if we each do the 
 duty that lies before us, these conditions will be 
 slowly and insensibly changed by tis ; but we 
 shall ourselves change also, as well as the con- 
 ditions ; what I mea7i is, that supposing by a 
 stcdden act of will we could do what we pleased 
 with the conditions of the age, we, being as we 
 are, should not be really able to ma.ke the age 
 better. We should not be really able to make 
 it different. Any Utopia we might imagine 
 wotdd, if it were a thinkable one, be only our 
 own age in a masquerading dress. For we 
 cannot escape from otir age, or add, except in a 
 very small degree, anything that is really new 
 to it. Nor need we wish to do so. Our age 
 is for us the best age possible. We are its 
 children, and it is our only true parent. But 
 though we cannot alter 02cr time at a stroke, so 
 to speak, no, not even in imagination, we can 
 all of us help to do so little by little, if we do 
 cheerfully the duties that are set before us. 
 And if ive do this, which is what Christ bids 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 i62 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 US to do, then is Christ made mmiifest in us, 
 and lives in the hearts of every one of us ; and 
 in a far higher sense than any mere physical 
 one. He is risen from the dead. And if Hebe 
 not so risen in and for us, then are we indeed, 
 as the Apostle says, " of all men most miser- 
 abler 
 
 * Let tts therefore, with a large hope for 
 the future, and a cheerful contentment with 
 the present, be willing to leave tJte world in the 
 hands of God, knowing that He has given us 
 what conditions and what circumstances are 
 best for us. Let us see all things in God, and 
 let us become in Him, as Plato says, ^'spectators 
 of all time, and of all existence!' And thtcs, 
 in spite of the difficulties presented to us by 
 " all the evil that is done tinder the sun,'' we 
 shall perceive that all things will, nay must, 
 come right in God's own time ; and the 
 apparent dualis^n of good and evil at last 
 become a glorious tinity of good. But let us 
 remember also that ''the Kingdom of God
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 163 
 
 Cometh not with observation ;'' and I wotcld 
 conclude my sermon with certain memorable 
 words spoken by Christ Himself, though un- 
 fortunately not to be found in the Gospels, but 
 preserved to us by Clement of Alexandria. 
 '' The Lo7^d^' Clement tells 2cs, '' being asked 
 when His kingdom should come, said, When 
 two shall be one, and that which is without as 
 that which is within, and the male with the 
 female — neither male nor female!' 
 
 ' And now '' (at the sound of this 
 
 word the whole congregation rose automati- 
 cally to their feet), ' I will ask you,' the Doctor 
 went on after a pause, * to conclude this morn- 
 ing s service by doing what I trust I have 
 shown that all here may sincerely and honestly 
 do. I mean, I will ask you to recite after me 
 the Apostles' Creed.' 
 
 This appeal took the whole congregation 
 quite aback. But there was no time for won- 
 der. Dr. Jenkinson at once began ; nor was 
 his voice the only sound in the theatre. Lady 
 
 M 2
 
 i64 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Ambrose, pleased, after all that she had heard 
 the night previous, to make public profession 
 of her faith, especially In a place where It could 
 not be called In question, followed the Doctor 
 audibly and promptly ; Miss Prattle followed 
 Lady Ambrose ; Lady Violet Gresham, who 
 was busy with one of her sleeve-links, followed 
 Miss Prattle ; Lady Grace, from quite another 
 part of the house, followed Dr. Jenkinson on 
 her own account ; Mr. Stockton repeated the 
 first clause in a loud voice, and then relapsed 
 into marked silence ; Mr. Luke only opened 
 his lips to sigh out audibly in the middle a 
 disconsolate ' Heigh ho ! ' Mr. Storks blew his 
 nose with singular vigour through the whole 
 proceeding ; Mrs. Sinclair, just towards the 
 end, tapped Leslie's arm gently with her fan, 
 and said to him In a whisper, ' Do you really 
 believe all this ? ' 
 
 When all was over, when the Doctor had 
 solemnly pronounced the last ' Amen,' he 
 looked about him nervously for a moment, as
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. 
 
 165 
 
 if the question of how to retire becomingly 
 suddenly dawned upon him. Luckily he 
 perceived almost directly a servant standing 
 in readiness by the curtain. The Doctor 
 frowned slightly at the man ; made a slightly 
 impatient gesture at him ; and Faust and 
 the young witch again covered the preacher 
 from the eyes of his congregation.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OT^mHE blinds were half-down at 
 luncheon in the dining-room, to 
 keep out the brilliant summer sun. 
 The guests dropped in by ones and twos, 
 somewhat tired and exhausted by the divine 
 service of the morning ; and the sight of the 
 table was not a little refreshing to them, as 
 it shone whitely in the soft gloom, with Its 
 flowers and ferns, and Its day-lit glimmer of 
 glass and silver. Soon, however, a piece of 
 news was circulated that was even more re- 
 freshing than the luncheon. Dr. jenklnson, 
 owing to his late exertions, and the gas-light, 
 and the draughts upon the stage, was suffer-
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER II. 167 
 
 ing from a headache, which inclined him to 
 keep his room ; and accordingly an unhoped- 
 for prospect of freely discussing the sermon 
 dawned brightly upon the whole party. 
 
 Mr. Stockton, who had been much struck 
 with the strictly prosaic style of Dr. Jenkin- 
 son's discourse, and who had been secretly 
 contrasting this with the more impassioned 
 character of his own mind, was the first to 
 begin. 
 
 ' The sermon was perhaps Ingenious,' he 
 said, turning to Lady Ambrose, 'but I'm afraid 
 our friend's forte is certainly not poetry.' 
 
 ' Surely,' said Donald Gordon with ex- 
 treme solemnity of manner and only a slight 
 twinkle in his eye, ' his forte is something far 
 better Poetry can only make us happy for a 
 little while. Such doctrines as we have 
 heard this morning ought to make us happy 
 always.' 
 
 As for Lady Ambrose, to whom both 
 these remarks were addressed, she was In
 
 i68 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 doubt what altogether to think of the matter. 
 More than half her heart inclined her to look 
 upon Dr. Jenkinson as a valuable ally ; but 
 there was yet, all the while, a fatal something 
 that whispered to her a vague distrust of him. 
 She was therefore waiting anxiously to hear 
 what would be said by others, before taking 
 any side herself; her mind all the while being 
 busy with the profoundest questions. This 
 suspense of judgment produced a certain 
 gravity and depression in her, which was 
 visible on her face, and which seemed to com- 
 municate itself to nearly everyone at her end 
 of the table. For Lady Ambrose was a 
 communicative woman. Her spirits, good or 
 bad, were generally caught by those near her. 
 As for Mr. Herbert, however, no one else 
 seemed needed to depress Jmn. Low, slow, 
 and melancholy, his accents at once caught 
 the ear of Lady Ambrose. 
 
 * I have heard to-day,' he said to Mrs. 
 Sinclair, who was sitting next him, 'an
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER II. 169 
 
 entirely new and in every way memorable 
 doctrine, which I never heard before from the 
 mouth of man, woman, or child ; nor can I 
 tell by what steps any human being could 
 have arrived at it. I have heard that the 
 world — the world as it is — could not be better 
 than it is ; that there is no real sorrow in it — 
 no real evil — no real sin.' 
 
 * Poor Dr. Jenkinson ! ' said Mrs. Sinclair, 
 also in a melancholy voice ; ' I suppose he 
 has never loved.' 
 
 * Ah,' exclaimed Mr. Stockton, — his voice 
 was melancholy as well — ' the whole teach- 
 ings of that school have always seemed to me 
 nothing more than a few fragments of science 
 imperfectly understood, obscured by a few 
 fragments of Christianity imperfectly re- 
 membered.' 
 
 * You forget,' said Leslie, 'that Dr. Jenkin- 
 son's Christianity is really a new firm trading 
 under an old name, and trying to purchase 
 the goodwill of the former establishment'
 
 I70 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Lady Ambrose, who had "not liked Leslie 
 so much on farther acquaintance as she had 
 at first expected she should, was very indig- 
 nant at him for so flippant a speech as this — 
 she felt sure it was flippant, though she did 
 not quite understand its meaning — but once 
 again Mr. Herbert's grave accents arrested 
 her. 
 
 * It is simply,' he was saying to Mrs. 
 Sinclair, evidently alluding to the same subject 
 — ' it is simply our modern atheism, trying 
 to hide its own nakedness, for the benefit of 
 the more prudish part of the public, in the 
 cast grave-clothes of a Christ who, whether 
 he be risen or no, is very certainly, as the 
 angel said, not here.' 
 
 ' All discussion of such matters seems to 
 me but a diseased activity,' said Mr. Rose, 
 raising languidly a white deprecating hand. 
 
 Mr. Storks too, though for different 
 reasons, was apparently of the same opinion. 
 
 * In his main points,' he said with a severe
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER 11. 171 
 
 dogmatism that seemed designed to end all 
 further controversy, 'and putting aside his 
 quasi-religious manner of expressing it — 
 which considering his position may be par- 
 doned — I conceive Dr. Jenkinson to have 
 been entirely right.' 
 
 Hitherto Lady Ambrose's views had been 
 wavering to and fro, in a sad uncertainty. 
 But now her mind at once cleared. Her 
 worst suspicions of the Doctor were con- 
 firmed by this fatal commendation. The 
 gloom on her face deepened, and she had a 
 look almost of distress about her as she 
 turned to Laurence. 
 
 ' You look tired,' he said to her. 
 
 'No,' said Lady Ambrose, wearily: 'at 
 least, perhaps I am a little. Do you know, I 
 always think one feels rather dull if one 
 doesn't get the letters one expects.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you don't know,' said Laurence, 
 ' that the letters you got this morning were 
 only those of last night's post. Our Sunday
 
 172 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 letters we are obliged to send for, and they 
 don't generally come till later on in the 
 day.' 
 
 * Really ! ' exclaimed Lady Ambrose, with 
 surprise, as a smile slowly spread over her 
 face, and her frank eyes lit up again. ' The 
 Duchess couldn't have forgotten it,' she said 
 to herself half-consciously. Strangely enough, 
 a new warmth, it seemed, had dawned upon 
 her, and her ice-bound gloom began to thaw 
 — to thaw only, however, not to evaporate. 
 It did not go ; it only became voluble. 
 
 ' Do you know, Mr. Laurence,' she began, 
 * I have been thinking over and over again 
 about many of the things that were said last 
 night ; and I really am afraid that the world 
 is getting very bad. It is very sad to think 
 so; but, with all this infidelity and wicked- 
 ness of which we hear so much, I'm afraid it 
 is true. For my own part, you know, there 
 is nothing I dislike so much as to hear the 
 Bible profanely spoken about ; though, of
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER II. 173 
 
 course, I know one Is tempted sometimes 
 to make jokes out of it oneself. And then/ 
 Lady Ambrose added — her ideas did not 
 always follow one another in the strictest 
 order — * hardly a week passes without some 
 new scandal. I had a letter only this morn- 
 ing, telling me all the particulars about Colonel 
 Eardly and poor 'Lady Arthur. And that 
 man, you know — ^just fancy it ! — it will not 
 be very long before we shall be obliged to 
 receive him again. However,' said Lady 
 Ambrose, with a slightly more cheerful 
 accent, ' that sort of thing, I believe. Is con- 
 fined to us. The middle classes are all right 
 — at least, one always hears so.' 
 
 At this moment Lord Allen's voice was 
 heard. 
 
 'But now,' Lady Ambrose went on to 
 Laurence, very slightly moving her head in 
 the direction of Lord Allen, and speaking in 
 a low tone, * how different he Is ! ' 
 
 Lady Ambrose had the greatest admira-
 
 174 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 tlon for Lord Allen, though her acquaintance 
 with him had hitherto been of the slightest ; 
 and Laurence, not knowing how to respond 
 to all her late remarks, was glad that her 
 attention was thus called elsewhere. 
 
 * Don't you think/ Allen was saying, half 
 addressing himself to Mr. Herbert, half to 
 Mr. Luke, 'that though at the present 
 moment things as they are may be worse 
 than they have ever been before, there 
 are yet ideas amongst us of things as they 
 might be, that are in advance of what has 
 ever been before ? I know quite well how 
 society is falling to pieces, and how all our 
 notions of duty are becoming confused or 
 lost. I know too how utterly without any 
 religion we are,' — (Lady Ambrose started) — 
 * at least any religion that one man can ex- 
 press to another, and that can enable men to 
 act in concert. But still, I can't help feeling 
 that, in spite of all this, a higher class of con- 
 ceptions both of religion and morality, and
 
 BOOK IL CHAPTER II. 175 
 
 social relations also, Is forming itself in the 
 minds of thinking men.' 
 
 * Perfectly true, Lord Allen,' said Mr. 
 Luke, ' perfectly true ! It is indeed the very 
 essence of the cultured classes to be beyond 
 their time — to have, indeed, every requisite 
 for making everything better, except the prac- 
 tical power. As you say, what man's life 
 ought to be — what true morality is — what is 
 true sense, and what is true nonsense — these 
 are matters never at any time distinguished 
 so truly as by some of us in the latter half of 
 the nineteenth century. Only, unfortunately,' 
 said Mr. Luke, sighing slowly, and looking 
 round the table, ' the dense ignorance of the 
 world at large hampers and hinders such men 
 as these, so that all that their teaching and 
 their insight can do, is only to suggest a 
 Utopia in the future, instead of leading to 
 any reality in the present.' 
 
 * All my happiness is in a kind of Utopia,' 
 sighed Mrs. Sinclair.
 
 176 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ' Yes— yes/ said Mr. Luke, wearily ; ' so 
 in these days must be the happiness of all of 
 us — except that of the world at large.' 
 
 Mr. Storks was here heard clearing his 
 throat. With an ominous pugilistic smile he 
 turned towards Mr. Luke. 
 
 ' Are you quite sure,' he said, ' that the 
 reason why your friends do nothing practical 
 is not because they will build Utopias ? I, 
 as I have already said, entirely hold with Dr. 
 Jenkinson that the world Is as good as it can 
 be — has, indeed, been always as good as It 
 could have been — has, that Is, been always 
 persistently progressing by one constant 
 course of evolution. I don't myself profess 
 to be a student of history ; but, as far as I at 
 all understand Its teachings, the one thing it 
 most clearly shows to us is, that what strikes 
 a superficial observer as simply the decadence 
 of old orders of things, is really, under the 
 surface, the birth of the new. Indeed,' said 
 Mr. Storks, shrugging his shoulders, ' of course
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER IT. 177 
 
 it must be so. We are all part of Nature ; 
 and, little as we think it, we are all working 
 together by invincible and inviolable laws. 
 Nature will have her own way; and those 
 who have studied her carefully know that her 
 way is always the best. Even supposing we 
 could transplant ourselves into some different, 
 some more advanced state of society, my dear 
 Sir, do you think we should be any happier 
 there ? As much happier, I suppose, as you 
 or I should be if we were translated into the 
 heaven our nurses used to tell us of, where 
 nothing was done but to sing Tate and Brady's 
 psalms with the angels to all eternity. The 
 air of our own age is the only air fit for us. 
 In any other we should languish.' 
 
 * I languish in this,' said Mr. Luke, looking 
 up to the ceiling. 
 
 Scarcely were the words out of his mouth 
 than Mr. Saunders exclaimed, in his most ex- 
 cited and shrillest voice, * I deny it — I entirely 
 deny it ! * 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Mr. Luke was thunderstruck. Even Mr. 
 Storks was taken aback by the audacity of the 
 contradiction ; and as for the rest of the com- 
 pany, they could not conceive where on earth 
 Mr. Saunders had left his manners. Mr. 
 Storks, however, was still more astonished, 
 and still less pleased, when he discovered, as 
 Mr. Saunders proceeded, what was the real 
 meaning of his speech. 
 
 * I entirely deny,' Mr. Saunders went on, 
 * that the ways of Nature are the best ways. 
 The belief that they are so is of all faiths the 
 one that most obviously contradicts experi- 
 ence. Did I accept this, I could accept any- 
 thing — Transubstantiation even. I should 
 literally feel that I had no right to condemn 
 any doctrine because it was groundless, gra- 
 tuitous, and absurd. This faith in the good- 
 ness of Nature — why, that it is a faith, is not 
 that enough to condemn it ? What but faith, 
 let me ask, has enslaved and stunted the world 
 hitherto ? And this particular faith, I would
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER IL 179 
 
 remind you, which you flatter yourself will 
 oppose religion, has been in most cases its 
 child, and is always ready to be its parent. 
 I on the contrary maintain that, far from being 
 the best, Nature is the most odious of things 
 — that the whole universe is constructed 
 on the most hateful principles ; in fact that 
 out of the primordial atoms only one thing has 
 developed itself in which the good outweighs 
 the evil ; and that is the one thing that is 
 usually opposed to Nature — man, and the 
 reason of man/ 
 
 Mr. Storks turned sharply round, and with 
 an awful look in his eyes of contemptuous 
 indignation, stared Mr. Saunders into silence. 
 He held him fixed in this way for a few 
 moments, and then said to him in a voice of 
 grim unconcern, ' May I trouble you for the 
 mustard/ Then again turning to Mr. Luke, 
 * You see,' he proceeded, * what I take to be 
 civilisation — indeed the whole duty of man, 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 is the gradual self-adaptation of the human 
 organism to its environment — an adaptation 
 which must take place, and any attempts to 
 hinder which are simply neither more nor less 
 than disease. Progress, which it is our high- 
 est life to further, is a thing that will continue 
 despite the opposition of individuals. Its 
 tendencies are beyond the control of indivi- 
 duals, and are to be sought in the spirit of the 
 age at large, — not — if you will forgive me the 
 word — in the crotchets of this or that thinker. 
 And it seems to me to be the hopeful and 
 distinguishing feature of the present day, that 
 men are learning generally to recognise this 
 truth — that they are learning not to cry out 
 against progress, but to investigate its grand 
 and inevitable laws, and submit themselves 
 willingly to them. And the tendency of our 
 own day is, I am proud to say, a tendency 
 towards firm, solid, verifiable knowledge, and, 
 as a result of this, towards the acquisition of 
 a firm and solid happiness also.'
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER IL i8i 
 
 * To me/ said Mr. Herbert, * it seems 
 rather that the only hope for the present age 
 lies in the possibility of some individual 
 wiser than the rest getting the necessary 
 power, and in the most arbitrary way possible 
 putting a stop to this progress — utterly 
 stamping out and obliterating every general 
 tendency peculiar to our own time. Mr. 
 Storks will perhaps think me very foolish. 
 Perhaps I am. I freely own that I could 
 more easily tell a good action if I saw it, than 
 a good piece of protoplasm, and that I think 
 the understanding of a holy moral law, by 
 which an individual may live, of infinitely 
 more importance than the discovery of all the 
 laws of progress in the world. But let Mr. 
 Storks despise me, and not be angry with 
 me ' 
 
 ' My dear sir,' interposed Mr. Storks, 
 with a gruff courtesy, ' why should I do either 
 the one or the other ? ' 
 
 * Because,' said Mr. Herbert, slightly
 
 l82 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 waving his hand, and speaking with great 
 emphasis, 'had I only the power, I would 
 myself put a forcible stop to all this evolution. 
 I would make a clean sweep of all the im- 
 provements that the present day so much 
 vaunts. I would collect an army of strong, 
 serviceable, honest workmen, and send them 
 to blow up Manchester, and Birmingham, 
 and Liverpool, and Leeds, and Wolverhamp- 
 ton * 
 
 * And all the artisans in them ? ' asked Mr. 
 Storks. 
 
 ' Well,' said Mr. Herbert, smiling, * I 
 would, perhaps, give the artisans notice of 
 this gunpowder plot of mine. And yet their 
 existence has always presented a painful 
 difficulty to me. For if there is no other 
 life, I think they have a very bad time of it 
 here ; and if there is another life, I think that 
 they will all certainly be damned. But it is 
 not only Manchester and Birmingham that I 
 would blow up. I would blow up also every
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER II, 183 
 
 anatomical museum In the land, save such as 
 were absolutely necessary for the use of pro- 
 fessional doctors, that the foul sights in them 
 should not taint men's imaginations, and give 
 them an appetite for beastly knowledge. I 
 would destroy every railway, and nearly every 
 steam-engine ; and I would do a number of 
 other things of a like sort, by way of prepar- 
 ing the ground for a better state of society. 
 Indeed, so far am I from believing that an 
 entirely different and better state of society is 
 unthinkable, that I believe it to be not im- 
 practicable ; and I am at the present moment 
 collecting money, from such as will here and 
 there confide in me, for the purpose of pur- 
 chasing land, and of founding a community 
 upon what seem to me to be true and 
 healthful principles — a Utopia, in fact — in 
 which I trust may be once again realised 
 upon earth those two things to which we are 
 now such strangers— order and justice.' 
 
 ' I once began a book about justice,' said
 
 1 84 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Laurence, 'on the model of Plato's Re- 
 public/ 
 
 'What is Plato's Republic?' said Lady 
 Ambrose. ' Tell me.' 
 
 * It is a book,' said Laurence, ' which 
 describes the meeting of a party of friends, 
 who fell discussing high topics just as we 
 are doing, and, amongst others. What is 
 justice ? ' 
 
 ' What !' exclaimed Lady Ambrose. ' Did 
 not they know that ? ' 
 
 ' You forget,' said Laurence, ' that this was 
 very long ago.' 
 
 * To be sure,' said Lady Ambrose ; * and 
 they were of course all heathens. Well — 
 and what conclusions did they come to as to 
 the nature of justice ?' 
 
 * At first,' said Laurence, ' though Socrates 
 himself was amongst them, they were all com- 
 pletely at a loss how to define it. But at last 
 they hit upon the notion of constructing an 
 ideal perfect state, in which of course justice
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER II. 185 
 
 would be lurking somewhere. Now there 
 are in life, Plato says, four great virtues — 
 wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice ; 
 and no sooner has the ideal state been con- 
 structed, than it appears that three of these 
 virtues are specially illustrated and embodied, 
 each in a particular class of citizens. Thus, 
 wisdom is specially embodied in the theore- 
 tical politicians and religious speculators of 
 the day ; courage is embodied in the practical 
 men who maintain and execute the regula- 
 tions and orders of the philosophers ; and 
 temperance is embodied in the commercial 
 and Industrial classes, who loyally submit them- 
 selves to their betters, and refrain from 
 meddling in matters that are too high for 
 them. And now, where is justice ? In what 
 class is that embodied specially ? ' 
 
 ' In the judges and the magistrates and 
 the policemen,' said Lady Ambrose. 
 
 * No,' said Laurence ; ' it is peculiar to no 
 class. It resides in all. It is that virtue
 
 1 86 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 which enables the others to exist and to con- 
 tinue.' 
 
 ' But surely,' said Lady Ambrose, ' all 
 that is not what we mean by justice now ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly not,' said Laurence ; ' and my 
 book was designed to investigate what justice 
 is, as it exists now. I, like Plato, constructed 
 a state, making it, however, a real rather than 
 an ideal picture. But when I had done this, 
 I could find no earnest thinking class to re- 
 present wisdom ; no class of practical poli- 
 ticians that would carry out even the little 
 wisdom they knew, and so represent courage ; 
 and certainly no commercial or industrial class 
 that would refrain for a single day from 
 meddling in matters that were too high for 
 them, and so represent temperance. So I 
 analysed life in a somewhat different way. I 
 divided it into happiness, misery, and justice. 
 I then at once discovered that the rich repre- 
 sented all the happiness of which we are now 
 capable, and the poor all the misery ; and that
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER II. 187 
 
 justice was that which set this state of things 
 going and enabled it to continue.' 
 
 *Ah, Laurence, ' exclaimed Mr. Herbert, 
 clapping his hands gently in sad applause, ' I 
 like that. I wish you had worked out this 
 idea more fully.' 
 
 ' Suppose,' exclaimed Leslie, ' that we try 
 this afternoon to construct a Utopia ourselves. 
 Let us embody our notions of life as it ought 
 to be in a new Republic' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lady Ambrose, ' I am not a 
 Conservative ; I don't object. I'm sure at 
 any rate that there is much we could all of us 
 alter, if we only had our own way.' 
 
 * Much,' said Lady Grace, with severe 
 briskness. 
 
 ' Much,' said Miss Merton, with a soft, 
 half serious smile. 
 
 * Much,' said Lord Allen, catching eagerly 
 at the idea. 
 
 * Well, then,' said Laurence, ' let us all do
 
 i88 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 our best to give those airy somethings, our 
 aspirations, a local habitation and a name.' 
 
 The majority of the company took very 
 kindly to the proposal. Lady Grace was 
 especially pleased, as it seemed to provide at 
 once a whole afternoon's occupation for the 
 party ; and it was arranged accordingly that 
 as soon as luncheon was over they should 
 adjourn for castle-building to a shady spot in 
 the garden.
 
 -A^ <^^ ^— -g . <a- 
 
 -^ ^7 "^7 "CT V ^5? K7 — ^7 C C7 "C^ iST- 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 UIDED by Lady Grace, the guests 
 gradually converged after luncheon 
 towards the appointed spot, strag- 
 gling thither by various ways, and in desultory 
 groups ; passing down broad flights of steps 
 flanked by gods and goddesses, and along 
 straight terraces set with vases and Irish 
 yews; while busts of orators, poets and 
 philosophers, with Latin inscriptions, glim- 
 mered to right and left of them in groves of 
 laurels; and scaly Tritons, dappled with 
 green lichens, spouted up water in the middle 
 of gleaming basins. Everything was to-
 
 I90 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 day looking at Its loveliest. There was an 
 unusual freshness In the warm summer air. 
 Beyond the green shrubs the sea shone bright 
 and blue ; and through the shrubs the sea- 
 breeze moved and whispered. 
 
 Laurence strolled slowly on behind with 
 Miss Merton, choosing a path which none of 
 the others had taken. 
 
 * How delicious this Is ! ' said Miss Merton, 
 lifting her hat to enjoy the breeze upon her 
 forehead. ' Nobody could be In bad spirits 
 In a place like this. There Is something so 
 fresh and living everywhere, and even when 
 we lose sight of the sea we still hear It' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Laurence. ' I believe these 
 gardens are like Keats's Island. There Is 
 no recess In them 
 
 Not haunted by the murmurous sound of waves.' 
 
 ' And how perfectly everything Is kept ! 
 What gardeners you must have ! ' said Miss 
 Merton, as they turned up a narrow winding
 
 BOOK IT. CHAPTER TTT. 191 
 
 walk, thickly set on either side with carefully- 
 trimmed laurels. 
 
 The whole place was, indeed, as Miss 
 Merton said, kept perfectly. Not a weed 
 was on the grey gravel ; not a single twig 
 called for pruning. Every vase they passed 
 was full of the most delicious flowers. Over- 
 head the branches of limes and of acacia- 
 trees murmured gaily. Everything seemed 
 to be free from care, and to be laughing, 
 light of heart, in the bright weather. 
 
 * I am taking you this way,' said Laurence, 
 * because I want to show you what I think 
 may perhaps interest you.' 
 
 As he spoke these words, a sudden bend 
 in the walk brought them face to face with 
 something that gave Miss Merton a sudden 
 sensation of surprise. It was a small classical 
 portico built in a style of the most severe 
 simplicity, through which by an iron gate one 
 passed into an open space beyond. What 
 surprised Miss Merton on seeing this was the
 
 192 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Singular sense of desolation and dreariness 
 that seemed all at once to come over her. 
 The iron gates before her were a mass of rust ; 
 the portico, which had once been white, was 
 weather-stained into a dismal grey ; the stone, 
 too, it was built of was scaling off in almost 
 every place, and the fragments lay unheeded 
 as they had fallen upon the ground. Here, 
 amongst everything that spoke of the utmost 
 care, was one object that spoke of entire 
 forgetfulness and neglect. They approached 
 in silence, and Miss Merton looked in through 
 the bars of the rusty gate. The scene that 
 met her eyes was one of greater desolation 
 still. It was a circular plot of ground, fenced 
 round by a low stone wall that was sur- 
 mounted by spiked railings. It looked as 
 though it might have been once a flower 
 earden, but it was now a wilderness. Outside 
 its boundary rose the rare and beautiful trees 
 of the happy tended shrubberies. Inside were 
 nettles, brambles, and long weedy grass.
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER III. 193 
 
 Nothing else was visible in this melancholy- 
 enclosure but three cypresses, apparently of 
 various ages, the two smaller planted near 
 together, the third, and by far the largest, 
 standing apart by itself. 
 
 Miss Merton was quite at a loss what to 
 make of the strange spot ; and, as Laurence 
 was feeling in his pocket for the key, she 
 asked him if it had anything to do with 
 breeding pheasants. 
 
 * Do you see what is written above the 
 gate ? ' said Laurence, as he pointed to a dim 
 inscription whose letters still retained a 
 glimmer of fading gold ; * can you read it ? 
 
 Neque harum, quas colis, arborum 
 Te, praeter invisam cupressum, 
 Ulla brevem dominum sequetur. 
 
 " Of all these trees which you love so, the 
 hated cypress only shall follow its master, 
 and be faithful to him in his narrow house." 
 But come — let us go inside, if you are not 
 afraid of the long grass.* 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 They passed through the gate, which 
 gave a low wail upon its hinges, and Miss 
 Merton followed Laurence, knee-deep in 
 grass and nettles, to the smallest of the three 
 cypress-trees. There Laurence paused. At 
 the foot of the tree Miss Merton saw a flat 
 slab of marble, with something written upon 
 it ; and for the first time she felt certain that 
 she must be in a place of graves. 
 
 ' This,' said Laurence, pointing to the 
 little cypress, ' was planted only five years 
 ago, ten days before the poor old man died 
 who now sleeps under it. This is my uncle s 
 grave. Do you see the inscription ? 
 
 Omnis moriar, nullaque pars mei 
 Vitabit Libitinam. 
 
 "■ I shall wholly die, and there is no part of 
 me that will escape the Venus of death." 
 That, and that alone, he chose to have 
 written over him.' 
 
 Laurence spoke with some feeling, but
 
 BOOK IT. CHAPTER III. 195 
 
 Miss Merton was so much surprised that she 
 hardly knew what response to make. 
 
 * And does nobody take any care of this 
 place ? ' at last she said. 
 
 ' No/ said Laurence. ' By his own last 
 orders, nobody. But come — you must look 
 at this too.' And he motioned her towards 
 the neighbouring cypress. 
 
 At the foot of this, almost hidden by the 
 long grass. Miss Merton saw something that 
 surprised her still more strangely. It was the 
 statue of a woman half reclining in a languid 
 attitude on a block of hewn marble. The 
 figure was full and beautiful, and the features 
 of the face were singularly fine ; but there 
 was something in the general effect that 
 struck one at the first moment as not pleasing. 
 What slight drapery there was, was disposed 
 meretriciously over the rounded limbs ; on 
 the arms were heavy bracelets ; one of the 
 hands held a half-inverted wine-cup, and the 
 other was laid negligently on a heap of coins. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 But what jarred most upon the feelings was 
 the face, with its perfect features. For a 
 cold sneer was fixed upon the full mouth and 
 the fine nostrils ; and the eyes, with a leer of 
 petulant sensuality, seemed to be fixed for 
 ever upon the flat neighbouring gravestone. 
 
 ' This cypress,' said Laurence, ' is much 
 older than the other. It was planted twenty 
 years ago ; and twenty years ago the original 
 of that statue was laid beneath it. She was one 
 of those many nameless ladies — for, as you 
 know, he completely exiled himself from society 
 all the latter part of his life — who from time 
 to time shared his fortunes at the house here. 
 She was too by far the loveliest. She was at 
 the same time the hardest, the most selfish, 
 the most mercenary as well. And he knew it 
 too. In spite of the distraction he found in her 
 companionship, he was never for a moment 
 deceived about her. At last, having made 
 a fortune out of him, she was thinking of 
 leaving him. But one day, suddenly she
 
 BOOK II, CHAPTER III. I97 
 
 caught a chill and died. She died here, 
 and here she was buried. That statue, as 
 you may imagine, is his design not hers. 
 The attitude, the drapery, the wine-cup 
 held in one hand, and the money in the 
 other, are according to his express direc- 
 tion ; and by his direction, too, that face, with 
 its lovely features, leers and sneers at him for 
 ever, as he rests in his neglected grave. 
 See,, too, there is the epitaph which he chose 
 for her : — 
 
 Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti \ 
 Tempus abire tibi est. 
 
 *' You have wantoned enough with me — you 
 have eaten enough of my substance — you have 
 drunk enough of my champagne ; 'tis high 
 time for you to go." And now,' said Laurence, 
 ' let us come to the third tree, and you shall 
 see what is overshadowed by it.' 
 
 They passed across the enclosure to the 
 largest of the three cypresses, and at the foot 
 of that Miss Merton discovered a third grave-
 
 198 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Stone, also with a poetical inscription. * That,' 
 said Laurence, * you can read without help of 
 mine.' 
 
 Miss Merton looked ; and the lines were 
 not new to her : — 
 
 A slumber did my spirit seal, 
 
 I knew no mortal fears. 
 She seemed a thing that could not feel 
 
 The touch of earthly years. 
 
 She knows no motion now, nor force. 
 
 She neither feels nor sees, 
 Rolled round in earth's diurnal course 
 
 With rocks, and stones, and trees. 
 
 * Here,' said Laurence, ' is the oldest grave 
 of all. Its date is that of the tree that stands 
 beside it, and that was planted forty years ago. 
 Under that stone lies the only woman — ex- 
 cept myself, almost the only thing — that the 
 old man ever really loved. This was in his 
 young days. He was only thirty when she 
 died ; and her death was the great turning- 
 point of his life. She lived with him for two 
 years, in a little cottage that stood on the very 
 spot where he afterwards built the villa. She
 
 BOOK 11, CHAPTER III. 199 
 
 has no name, you see, on the grave-stone, and I 
 
 had best not give her any. She was some 
 
 one's wife, but not his. That is her story. I 
 
 have her miniature somewhere, which one day 
 
 I should Hke to show you. It is a lovely dark 
 
 face, with liquid, spiritual eyes, and under it 
 
 are written two lines of Byron's, which might 
 
 have been composed for her : — 
 
 She walks in beauty like the night 
 Of cloudless climes and starry skies. 
 
 Well, there she lies now ; and the old man's 
 youth lies buried with her. It was her death 
 that made him a philosopher. He built this 
 great place here, and laid out these gardens 
 half to kill his grief for her, and half to keep 
 alive her memory ; and here, as you see, he 
 buried her. She gave up all that was best in 
 her for the love of him. He gave up all that 
 was best in him for the loss of her.' 
 
 * And is this place left quite uncared for '^. ' 
 said Miss Merton, looking around her. 
 
 * It is left/ said Laurence, * as he wished
 
 200 I'HE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 it should be. It was one of his most 
 special orders that, when he was dead and 
 buried, no further care of any kind should 
 be spent on it. The grass and weeds were 
 to be left to grow wild in it, the rails to rust, 
 the portico to decay and crumble. " Do 
 you think," he said to me, ''that I know so 
 little of life as to flatter myself that any 
 single creature will regret me when I am 
 gone, or even waste a thought upon me ? I 
 do not chose, as Christians do, to rest for ever 
 under a lie ; for their tombs are lying monu- 
 ments that they are remembered ; mine shall 
 be a true one that I am forgotten. Yes," he 
 said, " it makes me laugh to think of myself — 
 me, who have built this house and planted 
 these gardens which others will enjoy — rotting 
 in the midst of it all, under thorns and bram- 
 bles, in a little dismal wilderness. And then 
 perhaps, Otho," he would say to me, " some of 
 your friends who will walk about these gardens 
 in a year or two — Christians, no doubt, with
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER III. 201 
 
 the devil knows what of fine sentiments about 
 faith and immortality — will look in through 
 the bars *oi the gate, and be shocked at that 
 honest wilderness, that unconcealed neglect, 
 which is the only real portion of those that 
 have been." But during his last illness he 
 softened just a little, and admitted that I, he 
 did believe, cared for him and might, when he 
 was dead, every now and then think of him. 
 " And so," he said, " if you like to do it, come 
 every now and then, and scrape the moss 
 from my inscription, and from the two others. 
 But that is all I will have you do — that, and 
 nothing more. That will express all that it 
 is possible that you should feel for me." I 
 promised him to do no more than that, and 
 that I do. Poor old man ! ' Laurence went 
 on meditatively, as they passed out of the 
 gates, and were again in the bright trim gar- 
 den ; 'He thought that he belonged to times 
 before his own ; but I think that in reality 
 he belonged to times after them. If he was
 
 202 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 Roman at all, as he always fancied himself, he 
 was Roman onl)^ in that sombre ennui that 
 through all his later years oppressed him ; and 
 which seems to me to be now settling down 
 upon the world — an ennui that always kept 
 him seeking for pleasures, and that turned the 
 pleasures into ashes as soon as he possessed 
 them. His pleasures were high and low ; but 
 the higher made him despise the lower ; and 
 the lower he sought simply that he might drown 
 the higher. Two things only during his last 
 years never palled upon him : one was, saying 
 a sharp thing neatly ; the other, detecting 
 some new weakness in human nature. In this 
 he seemed really to revel. On the littlenesses 
 and the pretences of men, especially when 
 they turned out failures, he seemed to look 
 with a passionate contemptuous fondness, 
 like a wicked prince on a peasant-girl. See 
 — here was his summer study — this stone 
 pavilion. Let us go in for a moment, and I 
 will show it to you.'
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER III. 203 
 
 They were in front of a small quasi-classi- 
 cal building of white marble, embowered be- 
 hind in arbutus and in myrtles, and command- 
 ing from its large windows a full view of the 
 sea. Laurence unlocked the door, and he and 
 Miss Merton entered. 
 
 Inside there was a faint musty smell, and 
 a general sense that the place had been long 
 disused. The walls were completely lined 
 with books in splendid bindings, whose gilded 
 backs glimmered temptingly through the 
 network of the bookcase doors. In the centre 
 stood a table, covered with a cloth of faded 
 crimson velvet ; nothing on it but a tarnished 
 ormolu inkstand, in the shape of a Roman 
 temple, across the columns of which spiders 
 had woven dusty webs. Placed stiffly before 
 the table stood a gilded arm-chair, with 
 cushions of crimson damask, and under it a 
 foot-stool to match, which had been worn 
 quite bare by the old philosopher s feet. 
 
 ' Here,' said Laurence, * he would sit day
 
 204 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 after day amongst his books, drawing, or 
 reading, or writing, or looking out at his 
 flowers or at the sea. Look, these two fohos, 
 bound in red morocco, are a collection of his 
 verses, letters, essays and so on, that he had 
 had privately printed. They are not all, I'm 
 afraid, quite fit to read. But this first volume 
 is all right. I should like to take it out and 
 show it to you by-and-bye. But come — I 
 have nothing more to exhibit now. We had 
 better join the others. They will not be far off,' 
 he said, as they left the pavilion ; ' indeed, I 
 think I can hear them talking.' 
 
 In another moment they had passed 
 through an arch of evergreens, and found 
 themselves on the spot where nearly all the 
 rest of the party had already assembled, dis- 
 posed in an easy group upon the grass. The 
 place was an amphitheatre of velvet turf, set 
 round with laurels and all kinds of shrubs ; 
 in the arena of which — if one may so speak — 
 a little fountain splashed cool and restless in
 
 BOOK 11. CHAPTER III. 205 
 
 a porphyry basin. Overhead the blue sum- 
 mer sky was screened by the whispering 
 shade of tall trees ; and above the dark laurel 
 leaves the fresh sea was seen in the distance, 
 an azure haze full of sparklings. The whole 
 scene, as Miss Merton and Laurence, with 
 his gorgeous folio under his arm, came upon 
 it, was curiously picturesque. The various 
 dresses made against the green turf a soft 
 medley of colours. The ladies were in white 
 and black and pale yellow, green and crimson 
 and dove-colour. All the men, except Mr. 
 Luke, were in shooting coats ; and Mr. 
 Saunders, who wore knickerbockers, had even 
 pink stockings. And here, as the lights and 
 shades flickered over them, and the gentle air 
 breathed upon them, they seemed altogether 
 like a party from which an imaginative on- 
 looker might have expected a new Decameron. 
 Already, under Lady Grace's vigorous 
 guidance, a certain amount of talk had begun 
 apropos of the new Republic ; all the ladies,
 
 2o6 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 with the exception of Mrs. Sinclair, having 
 fallen to discussing the true position of women, 
 or rather of woman, and their opinions on this 
 point being a little various. But besides this, 
 the post had arrived ; and that too had 
 created some excitement. Lady Ambrose in 
 particular had become delightfully radiant, on 
 receiving a large envelope that was stiff as 
 she handled it ; and which she saw contained, 
 as she just peeped into it, a card, on the top of 
 which was printed, * To have the honour to 
 meet — .' . She had too just extracted from 
 Lord Allen a promise to come and stay with 
 her, next autumn, in the country ; and her 
 measure of good spirits was quite full. 
 
 * Now, Mr. Laurence,' she exclaimed, 
 dangling her hat in her hand, ' do come and 
 put a stop to this. You see what a woman's 
 parliament would be if we ever have one, 
 which my husband says is not at all im- 
 possible. Here is one of us who thinks that 
 everything will go well if women can only
 
 BOOK IT. CHAPTER TIT. 207 
 
 learn to paint flowers on white dessert plates, 
 and get fifteen shillings apiece for them.' 
 
 * And I,' said Lady Grace, smiling good- 
 naturedly, ' was just saying that they all 
 ought to be taught logic/ 
 
 ' Perfectly true,' exclaimed Mr. Saunders, 
 putting up his spectacles to see who had spoken. 
 
 ' And Miss Merton,' said Lady Ambrose, 
 ' thinks that we should all be taught to walk 
 the hospitals, or be sick-nurses.' 
 
 ' I should not so much mind that,' said 
 Mrs. Sinclair, ' in war time, if one had anyone 
 fighting in whose life one really took an 
 interest. I once thought, Mr. Leslie, that 
 that might really be my mission, perhaps.' 
 
 * But,' said Lady Ambrose, * how are we 
 to build a castle in the air together, if we are 
 all at cross purposes like this ? ' 
 
 There did indeed seem little prospect of 
 their getting to work at all ; until Leslie ex- 
 claimed at last that he thought he had found 
 a way.
 
 2o8 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 ' See/ said Mrs. Sinclair, ' I told you a 
 little while ago you would be wanted to talk 
 cleverly. And now, Mr. Leslie, don't you 
 think you would be more comfortable If you 
 sat a little farther off ? or Lady Grace, of 
 whom I am already afraid, will begin to think 
 we're flirting.' 
 
 * Well,' said Leslie, ' In spite of all our 
 differences, I think I see a way In which we 
 shall all be able to set to work together. We 
 want to imagine a state that shall be as nearly 
 perfect as we can make It. Well and good. 
 Now we shall all admit, I suppose, that in a 
 perfect state all the parts will be perfect, and 
 each part will Imply and Involve all the 
 others. Given one bone, we shall be able to 
 construct the entire animal. Let us then 
 take one part, and Imagine that first. Let us 
 take the highest class In our state, and see 
 what we think that ought to be, looking on it 
 In the first place not as a corporate body of 
 superiors, but as an assembly of equals. Let
 
 BOOK II. CHAPTER III. 209 
 
 US, I mean, to put It in other words, begin 
 with seeing what we really wish society to be 
 — what we really think that the highest and 
 most refined life consists in, that is possible 
 for the most favoured classes ; and then let 
 us see afterwards what is implied in this.' 
 
 Leslie's proposal was welcomed eagerly 
 by everyone. 
 
 * Well,' said Lady Ambrose, ' and so we 
 are each of us to say, are we, what we think 
 is the essence of good society ? Come then, 
 who knows ? ' 
 
 'Art,' murmured Mr. Rose. 
 ' Reason,' said Mr. Saunders. 
 
 * Unworldliness, based on knowledge of 
 the world,' said Miss Merton. 
 
 ' Wait a moment,' said Laurence, ' we are 
 going too fast. This is not what Mr. Leslie 
 means.' 
 
 ' No, no,' said Mr. Saunders. * Let us 
 get rid of what is evil before we introduce 
 what is good. I should begin by getting rid 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 of every belief that is not based upon reason, 
 and every sentiment whose existence cannot 
 be accounted for/ 
 
 ' Here we are/ said Lady Ambrose, * all 
 over the place. Now if I might be allowed 
 to say what I thought was the essence of 
 good society, I should say that a great part of 
 it, at least, was the absence of dull and vulgar 
 people/ 
 
 * Excellent ! ' exclaimed Mr. Luke, * and a 
 capital exclusion with which to begin our new 
 Republic/
 
 BOOK III,
 
 IT— ^1 — n — s — n — I — I — n — n — I 1 — — ff" 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 ES,' said Mr. Luke still more 
 solemnly, ' if we only follow this 
 out — this idea of the exclusion 
 from our society of all vulgar and extraneous 
 elements, we shall find we have done a great 
 deal more than we may at first think. We 
 shall have at once a free, and liberal, and un- 
 tainted social and intellectual atmosphere, in 
 which our thoughts, and feelings, and refine- 
 ments, and ways of living, may develop them- 
 selves to the utmost, unimpeded. Lady 
 Ambrose has certainly begun with hitting the 
 right nail on the head.' 
 
 Could Lady Ambrose have been told,
 
 214 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 when she left London the afternoon before, 
 that in another twenty-four hours she would 
 be taking the lead in the construction of a 
 Utopia, or ideal state of society, suggested 
 by the writings of a Greek philosopher, she 
 would have been utterly at a loss to know 
 what the prophecy meant ; and had she 
 known what it meant, she would certainly not 
 have believed it. Indeed, as it was, she could 
 hardly imagine that Mr. Luke was serious, 
 and that he was not laughing at her ; so she 
 said quickly and in a tone of self-defence, 
 
 ' Of course I know that there must be 
 something more than the mere exclusion of 
 vulgar people, Mr. Luke. We must have 
 religion, and all that, and ' 
 
 ' Ah,' exclaimed Mr. Luke, interrupting 
 her with a grand wave of the hand, * My dear 
 Lady Ambrose, let us leave all that till by- 
 and-bye. Let us be content to begin with 
 simpler matters first.' 
 
 * Let us begin with the flowers of life,'
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 215 
 
 said Leslie, * and when we have chosen these, 
 let us trace them back to their roots/ 
 
 ' I quite think,' said Miss Merton, * that in 
 a really good society — one that was perfectly 
 good even in the superficial sense of the 
 word — we should find, if we only had eyes 
 enough, religion lurking somewhere, and 
 everything else we want.' 
 
 * And so that's your view, my dear, is it ? ' 
 said Lady Ambrose. ' Oh, then, I suppose 
 since you a Roman Catholic think so, I may 
 also.' 
 
 * Surely, too,' said Miss Merton, * we must 
 all know that nothing can be so bad, either 
 for the pushers or the pushed, as the struggle 
 of people to get into what they think is good 
 society, not in the least because they care to 
 be there, but merely because they care to be 
 known to be there.' 
 
 Lady Ambrose, who perhaps felt uncon- 
 sciously some small pricks of conscience here, 
 again looked doubtful, and said, ' Still, if we
 
 2i6 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 really want to make a perfect state, this does 
 not seem a very serious thing to begin with.' 
 
 * Listen,' exclaimed Laurence, ' let me 
 read you something I have here — something 
 of my uncle's, which I have just thought 
 of It is a short adaptation of Aristotle's 
 Ethics! 
 
 Lady Ambrose started. Hearing two 
 words, the one as long as Aristotle, and the 
 other as unfamiliar as EtkicSy .sYi^ began to 
 think that she had made the conversation 
 serious with a vengeance. Indeed, the whole 
 party, as well as herself, showed some signs 
 of surprise. 
 
 ' It is very short,' said Laurence, ' and I will 
 only read a page or two. It is called ''A system 
 of Ethics, adapted from Aristotle, for the use 
 of the English Nation." It was suggested to 
 him — ' (and this bewildered Lady Ambrose 
 still more, though at the same time it gave 
 her some gleam of hope), 'by a very rich vulgar 
 family, who bought a place near here, and
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER L 217 
 
 who much annoyed and amazed him by the 
 great court they paid to him. This is the 
 first chapter ; it treats of " The Summum 
 Bonum, or The 77ioral End of action!' 
 Listen — 
 
 * Ethics *being the aj^t and science of human 
 action, as directed tozuards the chief good of 
 life — that highest and final end, to which, if 
 we think a little, we shall see all other ends are 
 subordinate ; it is evident that 07ir first task 
 7nust be, as our master Aristotle well says, to 
 for 771 a clear conceptio7t of what this e7id, the 
 chief good, is. 
 
 Now 071 this poi7it Aristotle would see7n 
 to err. For he, following tlie common 
 opinion of 7ne7i, affi7n7ts the chief good to be 
 happi7iess, holdi7ig the only questio7t to be, i7i 
 what does true Jiappi7iess lie f A7id if he 
 had bee7i philosophisi7ig for savages, he wotdd 
 indeed have bee7i i7t the iHght. But becattse 
 savages a7id 7ne7i i7i a state of 7iature have all 
 one e7id of actio7i, which is happi7iess, it by 710
 
 2i8 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 means follows that the same is true of civilised 
 nations, and that these may not have ends that 
 are far higher. It is indeed evident that they 
 have. And not this only, but that of such 
 ends there is a very great variety. To describe 
 and nttmber these with anything like absolute 
 accuracy is neither required nor admitted by 
 the 7iature of the subject. But we shall be 
 sufficiently near the truth if we say that tJiere 
 is a separate and characteristic chief good for 
 each civilised nation — [quot gentes tot szcmma 
 bona) — a7id that it is by this in each case that 
 the national character is dete^^mined. A 
 glance at the co7itinent of Europe will at ojice 
 illustrate this, and stcggest examples to tcs of 
 these national chief goods. We shall see the 
 Germans, for instance, following what is 
 called Thought to its inmost recesses, the French 
 what is called Life. We shall fi7id accordifigly 
 that the chief good of the fo7'mer nation, 
 which is perhaps the highest of all, is the 
 knowledge of the tmknowable ; whilst that of
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 219 
 
 the latter, which is next to it in dignity, is the 
 practice of the tmmentionable. And so on 
 with all the other nations ; each will be fotmd 
 to have its separate chief good ; and none of 
 these to have the least co7inection with happiness. 
 For us, however, who are English, and 
 writing for English 7^eaders, it will be enough 
 to concer7i ourselves simply with tJie chief 
 good of the English. 
 
 ' We shall discover this, in the same way 
 as we did that of the French and Germans, in 
 an examination of our own special national 
 characteristic. First, however, we must be 
 clear what this characteristic is ; and here it 
 will be well to take our neighbours opinions of 
 us as well as our own. If we inquire the7i in 
 what light we present ourselves to the other 
 European nations, we shall find that just as 
 the Germans are known mainly as a profound 
 nation, and the French as a prurient nation, so 
 are we, in like manner, now known as a vulgar 
 nation. And as this view of its exactly tallies
 
 220 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 with otcr own, it appears evident that the 
 special national characteristic of the English 
 is vulgarity, and that the chief good of the 
 English is the fi7ial end that is aimed at by 
 the English vulgar classes. 
 
 * This we affirm to be social distinction, to 
 their admiration and pursuit of which is due 
 that ca7^dinal moral quality which they call 
 worldliness in themselves, and snobbishness in 
 their friends and enemies. And if any object 
 that to a great part of the nation social dis- 
 tinction in its true sense is a thing unknown, 
 and that to another part it is a thing that 
 comes without being struggled for, and so in 
 neither case can be the end of moral action, 
 we shall answer them that to object this, is 
 much the same as to argue that a peach tree 
 does not bear peaches becatise none arc to be 
 seen growing 02U of the roots ; or that there is 
 no meaning in the Athanasian Creed because 
 none is attached to it by the only people who use 
 it ; or that there is no meaning hi the dogma of
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 221 
 
 the Popes infallibility because its only possible 
 meaning is repudiated by all those who defejtd 
 it. For nothing will be found unless we seek 
 it in its right place. And for the ethics of a 
 nation we must look only in tJiat part of the 
 nation which is their proper sphere ; and that 
 pa^rt is, as we have already shown, the vulgar 
 part. And should any still imagine that if 
 we thus limit the scope of our observation, zue 
 shall not be able to treat the subject exhaustively, 
 we shall re7nind him that the vulgar classes, 
 though not yet co-extensive with the nation, are 
 still rapidly becoming so, V2ilgarity ascending 
 and descending with equal certainty ; since on 
 the one hand it ruins all society into which it 
 contrives to enter ; whilst it thrives itself on 
 the other hand, on all society that contrives to 
 enter into it. To it therefore otir whole study 
 may be confined. Nor lastly, [for it is well to 
 anticipate every possible objection) is there any 
 need that even tints, we should study those 
 classes that naturally possess social distinction.
 
 222 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 that we may so learn m what its real essence 
 consists ; since, if we do but observe facts, we 
 shall see that ignorance of the wJiole in7ier 
 nature of good society is the chief characteristic 
 of those who with most single-heartedness 
 direct their lives towards getting into it. It 
 will be enough then, without any fartJur ex- 
 planation, to lay it down that social distinction 
 is the chief good, aiid the e7id of all moral 
 action ; nor can tJie Aristotelians say that this 
 is i7i 7^eality a mediate end, and sought for 
 only because it leads to happiness ; shice so far 
 are men from seeking social distinction for tJie 
 sake of happiness, that they are perpetually 
 renouncing happiness for the sake of social 
 distinction! 
 
 ' Capital, Mr. Laurence ! ' exclaimed Lady 
 Ambrose, breaking into a low silvery laugh, 
 as soon as Laurence had ended. ' And how 
 true that is about, those people who really ruin 
 the society into which they contrive to push 
 themselves ! '
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 223 
 
 Lord Allen, who caught ^liss Merton's 
 eye at this moment, gave a ver}^ faint smile. 
 
 ' So you see,' said Laurence, ' that you 
 were quite right, Lady Ambrose, by in- 
 stinctively beginning with exclusion/ 
 
 ' Still,' said Allen, ' I'm afraid that all this 
 is rather selfish. These people who want to 
 to be so smart, are, I dare say, not much the 
 worse because of it Indeed, myself, I rather 
 like a good snob now and then.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Laurence, ' let me read a few 
 more paragraphs, and you will see. ' Stuh 
 'being the end,' he goes on, 'of all moral 
 action, virtit£ or morality is that state of 
 mind which desires this end ; and virtuous or 
 moral acts are those wJiich help us 07t towards 
 it, provided only that they are dofie with 
 purpose. For acts done not with pmrpose, but 
 by chance, are not to be held moral. Now t/ie 
 nature of purpose is well explained by Aristotle, 
 when he says tJiat its object is all such volun- 
 tary action as is the result of deliberatum.
 
 224 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 And what then is the object of deliberation ? 
 Let tis consider that : for men^ it is evident, do 
 not deliberate about all ^natters alike ; since in 
 addition to their continually not deliberating in 
 cases when they ought, there are many matter's 
 about which deliberatiojt is out of the question. 
 Thus no one deliberates about what is in its 
 nature immutable, as how to alter vulgarity of 
 a peoples meinber of Parliament ; nor about 
 necessary things, as how to alleviate the 7nisery 
 of the starving poor ; 7ior about things of 
 chance, as how to prevent the dissemination of 
 cholera ; nor, again, about remote things which 
 do not concer7i us, as, to tise a foi^mer instance, 
 how to alleviate the misery of the starving 
 poor, 7ior does anyone deliberate about im- 
 possible things, as how to check the poisonous 
 adulteration of food ; nor about things that are 
 past and lost, as how to do anything for the 
 glo7y of England ; nor lastly do we deliberate 
 about things we do not care abotct, as how to 
 get that lost glory back again. Deliberation,
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER L 225 
 
 then, only takes place about stcc/i matters as 
 our own agency can effect, and which we wish 
 it shotcld effect. Virtue, therefore, being thtis 
 based on deliberation, is manifestly not one of 
 t/iose things that come to us by nature whether 
 we will or no ; bttt it is acqtdred by Jiabit, 
 The genus of moral virtue is a habit. But 
 what special sort of habit f and how does it 
 differ from all other habits ? Let us consider 
 this. 
 
 ' We mtcst remember first, that it is the 
 office of every virtue to perfect that of which it 
 is tJie virtiie. Thus it is the virtue of a 
 modern London house to be as badly btcilt as 
 possible and not be seen to be so; it is the 
 virtue of an instired ship not to appear uns9a- 
 worthy before she does so to the crew as she is 
 foundering ; and it is the virtue of butcher s 
 meat, groceries and so forth, not to appear un- 
 fit for human consumption. Ln the same way 
 vtoral virtue, or the virtue of a man, is that 
 which makes him appear to be one thing to the 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 worlds whilst in reality he is another. Such 
 being the case, it is plain that in trying to be 
 virtuous, we may^ as in most other things, do 
 too much, or too little ; and what is right will 
 be a mean lying between these two extre7nes. 
 Now of means there are two kinds, the absolute 
 and the relative, either of which we can find 
 in anything that is continuous ; the former, as 
 when we take the bisecting point in a straight 
 line, which is for all men one and the sa?ne ; 
 the latter, as when we take the mean point or 
 thing with reference to ourselves, in zvhich case 
 it will differ with our differeiit requirements. 
 Thus, if three be too small a number, and 
 seventy-five too great, simply as an arithnetical 
 problem, we take thirty-nine to be the mea^i, 
 zvhich exceeds three by as much as it is exceeded 
 by seventy-five ; but with refere7ice to ourselves 
 we cannot so decide. For thirty -nine articles of 
 religion may be too fczu for the present Arch- 
 bishop of Westminster, and three may be too 
 many for the Dean. Or again between lool.
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 227 
 
 and 20/., the mean with regard to the matter 
 itself would be 60/., but with regard to our- 
 selves, not so. For 60/. would be too little to 
 offer to a cook, and too much to offer to a 
 curate. So in like manner that equality which 
 C07istitutes moral virtue is 7iot the absolute, but 
 the relative mean. Moral virtue, then, we 
 shall define to be a certahi state, or habit of 
 piLrpose, conforming in action to the relative 
 mean, and adjusted to that mea^i as the worldly 
 or snobbish man would adjust it. At this 
 poi^it we shall pause a mo77ient to make a very 
 slight change in the accepted terminology of the 
 subject. We have hitherto spoken of the virtite 
 of the vulgar classes as being a mean. We 
 consider, however, that 02tr language will be 
 less ambigtcous, if we take another form of the 
 same word, and agree to call it a meanness. 
 Moral virtue, then, is a mea7iness lying between 
 two vices, its extre7nes ; the 07ie vice being that 
 of excess, the other that of defect. Thus it is 
 possible for a habit of7ni7idto be so unrestrained 
 
 Q2
 
 228 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 and vehement^ that the acts it produces at once 
 betray theh^ motives and obtrude them on the 
 observer ; it is possible for it, also, on the other 
 hand, to be so weak and nerveless as never to 
 produce any acts at all. For instance, the 
 habit of thought in a clergyman may be so 
 strong and unrestrained as to lead him to speak 
 his whole conclusions out, and so get deprived of 
 his living ; or on the other hand it may be so 
 weak and undeveloped, that he comes to no con- 
 clusions at all, and so dies in a curacy ; the 
 meanness between these two extremes being 
 what is called vagiceness, or the absence of any 
 defined opinions, which is a great merit, and 
 leads, in the Established Chiirch, to high pre- 
 ferment. So also with habits of action, the 
 general name given to the trite meanness is 
 worldliness, whereof the excess is snobbishness, 
 and the defect independence. Worldliness 
 being in its essence the former of these, and in 
 its aspect the latter. Whe7ice it follows that 
 we may yet farther generally define the moral
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 229 
 
 meanness, as that which is inwardly one ex- 
 treme, and which is outwardly tlie other! 
 
 ' Now,' said Laurence, ' though I don't 
 suppose the writer of this really cared two 
 straws whether the majority of people were 
 mean and vulgar or no, there is a great deal 
 of truth in what he says : and I think in our 
 ideally good society, one of the first things we 
 want is that it shall be unmixed and genuine ; 
 I mean all its members must be of it, as well 
 as in it. They must give it its prestige. We 
 must have none that merely get their pres- 
 tige from it' 
 
 ' Well,' said Allen, 'no doubt this exclusion 
 is better, if it could be only managed.' 
 
 ' Don't let us think yet,' said Laurence, 
 
 * about how to manage it. Let us see what we 
 want first, and see what it costs afterwards.' 
 
 ' I certainly believe,' said Miss Merton, 
 
 * that what I consider the extremely bad 
 manners of a great many very fine ladies 
 would all go, if a stop were put to this
 
 230 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 jostling and scrambling that goes on about 
 them, as Mr. Laurence proposes.' 
 
 * See,' said Laurence, ' here is one good 
 fruit of exclusion at once — the redemption of 
 our manners ; and a most important fruit too, 
 I think ; for I hope we all start with the un- 
 derstanding that our society, ideally good as 
 it is, is above none of those outward graces 
 and refinements of behaviour and ways of 
 living, that give us such pleasure now, when 
 we find them.' 
 
 * And manner too, Mr. Laurence,' broke 
 
 In Lady Ambrose, ' as well as manners 
 
 Think what a charm there is in a really 
 charming manner.' 
 
 * There is indeed,' exclaimed Mr. Stockton. 
 
 * The dear Duchess of for instance — 
 
 why there's a fascination even in the way in 
 which she says good morning.' 
 
 * Ah yes,' said Lady Ambrose. ' Now 
 there's what I call a really perfect manner 
 for you.'
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 231 
 
 * Very well,' said Laurence, ' and whatever 
 Is a really perfect manner, In our Ideal society 
 we must all have it.' 
 
 ' I must confess,' said Allen, ' that I get 
 very sick sometimes of our conventional 
 society manners ; and I often long to have 
 a good genuine savage to talk to.' 
 
 ' That,' said Laurence, * is because of all 
 the social shams that we have just agreed to 
 get rid of. And to call the manner of society 
 conventional, conveys no greater blame 
 than if you were to call language con- 
 ventional. For manner is but a second 
 language, of which the best society speaks the 
 purest dialect — the Attic, in fact. And as 
 with language, so with manner, the more 
 uniformity there is in it in some ways, the 
 nicer shades of individuality shall we be able 
 to express by it In others.' 
 
 *Well,' said Allen, shortly, 'perhaps it is 
 so. You are very likely right' 
 
 'And In manner,' said. Laurence, 'I in-
 
 232 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 elude tone too — that special and indescribable 
 way of looking at things, and speaking of 
 things, which characterises good society, and 
 distinguishes it from the rest of the world so 
 completely, and yet by marks so subtle that 
 they would utterly escape the notice of those 
 who don't know their meaning — that little 
 extra stroke of polishing that brings to light 
 such countless new delicate veins in the 
 marble of life — the little extra stroke of the 
 brush that puts a new refinement, and self- 
 possession, into the face. As Browning says 
 of a very different subject — 
 
 Oh, the little more, and how much it is, 
 And the little less and what worlds away. 
 
 And this is something quite independent of 
 any special ability or special quality on the 
 part of the individual people themselves ; 
 though of course the more gifted and culti- 
 vated they are, the greater will its charm 
 
 be; 
 
 ' Yes,' said lyiiss Merton, thoughtfully,
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 233 
 
 and half to herself, ' I think all that Is quite 
 true.' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Laurence, ' I know that 
 tone alone can only make society good in a 
 very narrow sense of the word. I merely 
 mean that no amount of other qualities can 
 make it really good, without tone.' 
 
 ' I don't in the least object,' said Allen, 
 * to the marble being polished ; but what I 
 want first to be sure of is, that it is worth 
 polishing.' 
 
 ' Quite so,' said Laurence. ' What we 
 must now consider, is what are all those 
 special qualities and accomplishments, which 
 will make a really perfect society the best 
 among the best — such things as wit, know- 
 ledge, experience, humour, and so on — the 
 veins, in fact, in the marble, that can be 
 brought out by the polish.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes, my dear Laurence,' began Mr. 
 Luke, ' this is the great thing that we shall 
 have to decide about ; and it is this very
 
 234 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 thing that I am always telHng the world 
 
 But he was interrupted by the advent 
 of Mr. Herbert, who, with the exception of 
 Mr. Storks and Dr. Jenkinson, was the only 
 member of the party not already there. Mr. 
 Herbert's whole aspect surprised everyone. 
 At luncheon, as all remembered, he had been 
 melancholy and desponding ; but his face 
 now wore a bright smile, and there was 
 something that was almost gaiety in his 
 elastic step. No one, however, ventured 
 to ask him the reason of this pleasing 
 change ; but as he held an open newspaper 
 in his hand, which he had apparently just 
 received, it occurred to most that he must 
 have seen in it ' something to his advan- 
 tage.' 
 
 * Well,' he exclaimed to Laurence, in a 
 manner quite in keeping with his look, ' and 
 tell me now how are you getting on with your 
 New Republic ? You ought to make a very
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 235 
 
 beautiful thing out of it — all of you together, 
 with so many charming ladies.' 
 
 * Do you think so ? ' said Laurence, in 
 great surprise at this cheerful view of things. 
 
 * Yes,' answered Mr. Herbert, slowly and 
 with decision. ' Ladies I always think, so 
 long as they are good and honest, have 
 beautiful imaginations. And now, let me 
 ask you how you have set to work.' 
 
 Laurence explained to him that they had 
 begun, on Leslie's suggestion, with consider- 
 ing what society, or the life of the highest 
 classes, would be at its best ; and that they 
 were going to see afterwards what was 
 implied in this. 
 
 'Indeed!' said Mr. Herbert, medita- 
 tively. ' Now, that is a really beautiful way 
 of going about the business. And how far, 
 let me ask you, have you got with your 
 picture of these highest classes ? I trust 
 at all events that you have made a good 
 beginning.'
 
 236 THE NEW REPUBLIC, 
 
 * A beginning/ said Laurence, * is all that 
 we have made. We have agreed that our 
 society is to have the utmost polish, ease, 
 and grace of manner, and the completest 
 savoir vivre. It is, in fact, to be a sort of 
 exemplar of human life at its highest con- 
 ceivable completeness/ 
 
 * Excuse me,' said Mr. Herbert, 'but the 
 ways of polite life, and the manners of fine 
 ladies and gentlemen, are beautiful only as 
 the expression of a beautiful spirit I They 
 are altogether hateful as the ornament or the 
 covering of a vile one.' 
 
 * Yes, Herbert, yes,' exclaimed Mr. Luke, 
 with a long sigh. ' And I was just going to 
 say this, when you joined us that to make 
 society really good — even really brilliant and 
 entertaining — one thing is wanted, and that is 
 true and genuine culture. Then let us have 
 the polish by all means ; but let it be a 
 diamond we polish, and not a pebble. Our 
 society must be one that does not merely
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. lyj 
 
 dance, and hunt, and shoot. It must think, 
 and reason, and read. It must be famiHar — 
 the whole of it must be famiHar — with the 
 great thoughts of the world, the great facts of 
 the world, and the great books of the world. 
 You want all this, if you would be perfectly 
 brilliant in your salons, as well as really pro- 
 found in your studies.' 
 
 This was assented to by nearly all. Lady 
 Ambrose however looked a little uncomfort- 
 able, and not quite satisfied about some- 
 thing. 
 
 * Don't you think,' she said at last, * that if 
 everyone is to have so much culture, society 
 will tend to become — well — just a little ' 
 
 * Well, Lady Ambrose ? ' said Laurence. 
 
 ' Well, just a little bit blue. It will be all 
 too bookish, if you understand what I mean. 
 Don't you know when anyone comes to see 
 you In London, and will talk of nothing but 
 books, one always fancies it is because he isn't 
 — it's very uncharitable to say so, but still it's
 
 238 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 true — because he isn't very much in society, 
 and doesn't know many people to talk about ? ' 
 
 * I always think it such a blessing,' said 
 Lord Allen, 'to find anyone who will talk 
 about books, and will not be perpetually bor- 
 ing one with vulgar gossip and scandal.' 
 
 ' Oh, so do I,' said Lady Ambrose eagerly, 
 ' but that was not what I meant exactly. Mr. 
 Laurence knows what I mean ; I'm sure he 
 does. No one can delight in a book more than 
 I ; but still — ' she said, pausing to think how 
 much of what she considered culture was to be 
 found in those London drawing-rooms where 
 she felt her own life completest, ' still — 
 somehow — ' she said with a faint smile, ' it is 
 possible to be too literary, isn't it, as well as 
 too anything else ? ' 
 
 ' Perfectly true. Lady Ambrose,' said Mr. 
 Luke — Lady Ambrose was delighted — ' peo- 
 ple continually arc too literary — to my cost I 
 know it ; and that is because the world at large 
 — what is called the reading world even more
 
 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. 239 
 
 than the non-reading world — are hopelessly at 
 sea as to what books are, and what they really 
 do for us. In other words, if you will forgive 
 my harping as I do upon a single expression, 
 they lack culture.' 
 
 ' Why, I thought culture was books and 
 literariness, and all that,' Lady i\mbrose 
 murmured half aloud, with a look of be- 
 wilderment. Mr. Herbert however suddenly 
 came to her rescue. 
 
 ' Now all this,' he said, ' is most interesting, 
 but I feel myself, something as I imagine Lady 
 Ambrose does, that I should like to know 
 a little more clearly what culture is, and what 
 you mean by it, when you call it the essence 
 of good society.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Lady Ambrose, ' this is just 
 what I like. Come Mr. Luke, suppose you 
 were to tell us.' 
 
 ' Suppose,' said Mr. Luke with an august 
 wave of his hand, ' instead of that we ask Mr. 
 Laurence to tell us. No one can do so better
 
 240 THE NEW REPUBLIC. 
 
 than he. I, Lady Ambrose, have perhaps 
 grown something too much of a speciaHst to 
 be able to put these things in a sufficiently 
 popular way.' 
 
 * Ah,' said Mr. Herbert, * this is really nice. 
 I shall like to listen to this. But you must 
 allow me to be merely a listener, and not ask 
 me for instruction. I assure you I am here 
 altogether to be instructed.' 
 
 Laurence, with some diffidence, assented 
 to what was asked of him ; and there was a 
 general rustling on all sides of the party settling 
 themselves down more luxuriously on the 
 grass. Every influence of the summer afternoon 
 conspired to make all take kindly to the topic 
 — the living airy whisper of the leaves over- 
 head, the wandering scents of the flowers 
 that the breeze just made perceptible, the 
 musical splash of the fountain in its quiet 
 restlessness, the luxury of the mossy turf as 
 soft as sleep or rose-leaves, and a far faint 
 murmur of church-bells that now and then
 
 BOOK IIL CHAPTER L 
 
 241 
 
 invaded the ear gently, like a vague appealing 
 dream. Mr. Saunders even was caressed by 
 his flattered senses into peacefulness ; the 
 high and dry light of the intellect ceased to 
 scintillate in his eyes ; the spirit of progress 
 condescended to take a temporary doze. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 VOL. L
 
 March, 1877. 
 
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