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第23章

lay morals-第23章

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taken in some pinch closer than  the common; they cry; 'Catch me here again!' and sure enough  you catch them there again … perhaps before the week is out。   It is as old as ROBINSON CRUSOE; as old as man。  Our race has  not been strained for all these ages through that sieve of  dangers that we call Natural Selection; to sit down with  patience in the tedium of safety; the voices of its fathers  call it forth。  Already in our society as it exists; the  bourgeois is too much cottoned about for any zest in living;  he sits in his parlour out of reach of any danger; often out  of reach of any vicissitude but one of health; and there he  yawns。  If the people in the next villa took pot…shots at  him; he might be killed indeed; but so long as he escaped he  would find his blood oxygenated and his views of the world  brighter。  If Mr。 Mallock; on his way to the publishers;  should have his skirts pinned to a wall by a javelin; it  would not occur to him … at least for several hours … to ask  if life were worth living; and if such peril were a daily  matter; he would ask it never more; he would have other  things to think about; he would be living indeed … not lying  in a box with cotton; safe; but immeasurably dull。  The  aleatory; whether it touch life; or fortune; or renown …  whether we explore Africa or only toss for halfpence … that  is what I conceive men to love best; and that is what we are  seeking to exclude from men's existences。  Of all forms of  the aleatory; that which most commonly attends our working  men … the danger of misery from want of work … is the least  inspiriting: it does not whip the blood; it does not evoke  the glory of contest; it is tragic; but it is passive; and  yet; in so far as it is aleatory; and a peril sensibly  touching them; it does truly season the men's lives。  Of  those who fail; I do not speak … despair should be sacred;  but to those who even modestly succeed; the changes of their  life bring interest: a job found; a shilling saved; a dainty  earned; all these are wells of pleasure springing afresh for  the successful poor; and it is not from these but from the  villa…dweller that we hear complaints of the unworthiness of  life。  Much; then; as the average of the proletariat would  gain in this new state of life; they would also lose a  certain something; which would not be missed in the  beginning; but would be missed progressively and  progressively lamented。  Soon there would be a looking back:  there would be tales of the old world humming in young men's  ears; tales of the tramp and the pedlar; and the hopeful  emigrant。  And in the stall…fed life of the successful ant… heap … with its regular meals; regular duties; regular  pleasures; an even course of life; and fear excluded … the  vicissitudes; delights; and havens of to…day will seem of  epic breadth。  This may seem a shallow observation; but the  springs by which men are moved lie much on the surface。   Bread; I believe; has always been considered first; but the  circus comes close upon its heels。  Bread we suppose to be  given amply; the cry for circuses will be the louder; and if  the life of our descendants be such as we have conceived;  there are two beloved pleasures on which they will be likely  to fall back: the pleasures of intrigue and of sedition。

In all this I have supposed the ant…heap to be financially  sound。  I am no economist; only a writer of fiction; but even  as such; I know one thing that bears on the economic question  … I know the imperfection of man's faculty for business。  The  Anarchists; who count some rugged elements of common sense  among what seem to me their tragic errors; have said upon  this matter all that I could wish to say; and condemned  beforehand great economical polities。  So far it is obvious  that they are right; they may be right also in predicting a  period of communal independence; and they may even be right  in thinking that desirable。  But the rise of communes is none  the less the end of economic equality; just when we were told  it was beginning。  Communes will not be all equal in extent;  nor in quality of soil; nor in growth of population; nor will  the surplus produce of all be equally marketable。  It will be  the old story of competing interests; only with a new unit;  and; as it appears to me; a new; inevitable danger。  For the  merchant and the manufacturer; in this new world; will be a  sovereign commune; it is a sovereign power that will see its  crops undersold; and its manufactures worsted in the market。   And all the more dangerous that the sovereign power should be  small。  Great powers are slow to stir; national affronts;  even with the aid of newspapers; filter slowly into popular  consciousness; national losses are so unequally shared; that  one part of the population will be counting its gains while  another sits by a cold hearth。  But in the sovereign commune  all will be centralised and sensitive。  When jealousy springs  up; when (let us say) the commune of Poole has overreached  the commune of Dorchester; irritation will run like  quicksilver throughout the body politic; each man in  Dorchester will have to suffer directly in his diet and his  dress; even the secretary; who drafts the official  correspondence; will sit down to his task embittered; as a  man who has dined ill and may expect to dine worse; and thus  a business difference between communes will take on much the  same colour as a dispute between diggers in the lawless West;  and will lead as directly to the arbitrament of blows。  So  that the establishment of the communal system will not only  reintroduce all the injustices and heart…burnings of economic  inequality; but will; in all human likelihood; inaugurate a  world of hedgerow warfare。  Dorchester will march on Poole;  Sherborne on Dorchester; Wimborne on both; the waggons will  be fired on as they follow the highway; the trains wrecked on  the lines; the ploughman will go armed into the field of  tillage; and if we have not a return of ballad literature;  the local press at least will celebrate in a high vein the  victory of Cerne Abbas or the reverse of Toller Porcorum。  At  least this will not be dull; when I was younger; I could have  welcomed such a world with relief; but it is the New…Old with  a vengeance; and irresistibly suggests the growth of military  powers and the foundation of new empires。



COLLEGE PAPERS CHAPTER I … EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824



ON the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of the  LAPSUS LINGUAE; OR; THE COLLEGE TATLER; and on the 7th the  first number appeared。  On Friday the 2nd of April 'MR。  TATLER became speechless。'  Its history was not all one  success; for the editor (who applies to himself the words of  Iago; 'I am nothing if I am not critical') overstepped the  bounds of caution; and found himself seriously embroiled with  the powers that were。  There appeared in No。 XVI。 a most  bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie; in which he was compared  to Falstaff; charged with puffing himself; and very prettily  censured for publishing only the first volume of a class… book; and making all purchasers pay for both。  Sir John  Leslie took up the matter angrily; visited Carfrae the  publisher; and threatened him with an action; till he was  forced to turn the hapless LAPSUS out of doors。  The  maltreated periodical found shelter in the shop of Huie;  Infirmary Street; and No。 XVII。 was duly issued from the new  office。  No。 XVII。 beheld MR。 TATLER'S humiliation; in which;  with fulsome apology and not very credible assurances of  respect and admiration; he disclaims the article in question;  and advertises a new issue of No。 XVI。 with all objectionable  matter omitted。  This; with pleasing euphemism; he terms in a  later advertisement; 'a new and improved edition。'  This was  the only remarkable adventure of MR。 TATLER'S brief  existence; unless we consider as such a silly Chaldee  manuscript in imitation of BLACKWOOD; and a letter of reproof  from a divinity student on the impiety of the same dull  effusion。  He laments the near approach of his end in  pathetic terms。  'How shall we summon up sufficient courage;'  says he; 'to look for the last time on our beloved little  devil and his inestimable proo

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