'THAT VERY MAB'

By May Kendall and Andrew Lang

 'Ah! now I see Queen Mab has been with you'

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

1885

CONTENTS. 

 I. UNDER TWO FLAGS II. DISILLUSIONS III. THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION IV. THE POET AND THE PALÆONTOTHEOLOGIST V. ST. GEORGE FOR MERRY ENGLAND VI. JUSTICE AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY VII. MACHINERY AND THE SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT VIII. THE BEAUTIFUL IX. IN WHICH THE NIHILIST, THE DEMOCRAT, AND THE PROFESSOR OFFER A SUGGESTION TO THE BISHOP X. THE SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF THE NIHILIST XI. HOME AND FOREIGN POLICY COMBINED XII. THE DELUGE

'THAT VERY MAB'

CHAPTER I. -- UNDER TWO FLAGS. 

 'You send out teachers of religion to undermine and ruin the people. '--Black Flag Proclamation to the French, 1883. 

The moonlight, in wave on wave of silver, flooded all the Sacred Island. Far away and faint ran the line of the crests of Samoa, like the hillsof heaven in the old ballad, or a scene in the Italian opera. Then camea voice from the Calling Place, and the smooth sea thrilled, and all thefishes leaped, and the Sacred Isle itself was moved, and shuddered toits inmost heart. Again and again came the voice, and now it rose andfell in the cadences of a magical song (or _Karakia_, if we _must_ havelocal colour), and the words were not of this world. Then, behold, thesmooth seas began to break and plash round the foremost cape of the HolyIsland, and to close again behind, like water before the keel and behindthe stern of a running ship, so they plashed, and broke, and fell. Nextthe surface was stirred far off with the gambolling and sporting ofinnumerable fishes; the dolphin was tumbling in the van; the flying fishhovered and shone and sank; and clearer, always, and yet more clear camethe words of the song from Samoa. Clearer and louder, moment by moment, rose the voice of Queen Mab, where she stood on the Calling Place of theGods, and chanted to the Islands, and to the sea, and the dwellers inthe sea. It was not that she left her stand, nor came nearer, but theSacred Island itself was steering straight, like a magical barque, drawnby the wonderful song, to the mystic shore of Samoa. Now Queen Mab, where she stood among her court, with the strange brown fairies of theSouthern Ocean, could behold the Sacred Island, with all its fairy crew. Beautiful things they seemed, as the sailing isle drew nearer, beautifuland naked, and brave with purple pan-danus flowers, and with red andyellow necklets of the scented seed of the pandanus. At last Queen Mab, the fairy in the fluttering wings of green, clapped her hands, and, witha little soft shock, the Sacred Island ran in and struck on the hauntedbeach of Samoa. What was Queen Mab doing here, so far away from England?England she had left long ago; when the Puritans arose the Fairiesvanished. When 'Tom came home from labour and Cis from milking rose, 'there was now no more sound of tabor, nor 'merrily went their toes. 'Tom went to the Public House or the Preaching House, and Cis--Cis waitedtill Tom should come home and kick her into a jelly (his toes goingmerrily enough at that work), or tell her she was, spiritually, in aparlous case. So the Fairy Queen and all her court had long since fledfrom England, and long ago made a home in the undiscovered isles ofthe South. Now they all met and mingled in the throng of the Polynesianfairy folk, and, rushing down into the waters, they revelled all nighton the silvery sand, in the windless dancing places of the deep. Tanêand Tawhiti came, the Gods of the tides and the shores, and all thefairies sang to them:

 'Tawhiti, on the sacred beach The purple pandanus is thine! How soft the breakers come and go, How bright the fragrant berries blow, The fern-tree scents the shining reach, And Tanê dances down the brine!'

Such is the poetry of the Polynesian fairies. It is addicted to frequentrepetitions of the same obvious remark, and it does not contain aCriticism of Life, so we do not give any more of it. But, such as itwas, it seemed to afford great pleasure to the dancers, probably becauseevery one of them could compose any amount of it himself, at will, and every dancer was 'his own poet, ' than which nothing can be moresalubrious and delightful. 

Thus the dance and the revel swang and swayed through the silver hallstill the green lights began to glow with gold and scarlet and crimson, burning into dawn. Then came a sudden noise, like thunder, crashing androaring through the silence of the sea. Queen Mab clapped her hands, and, in one moment, the Sacred Isle had flitted back to its place, andthe music stopped, and the dancers vanished. 

Then, as the island swiftly receded, came a monstrous wave, and nowonder, which raised the surface of the sea to a level with the topmostcliff of the Calling Place. Queen Mab, who had flown to a pine-treethere, saw the salt water fall back down the steeps like a cataract, and heard a voice say, 'The blooming reef has bolted. ' Another voiceremarked something about 'submarine volcanic action. ' These words camefrom a level with her head, where the Queen saw, stranded in a hugetree, a boat with a funnel that poured forth smoke, and with wheelsthat still rapidly and automatically revolved in mid air. In fact, amissionary steamer had been raised by the mighty tidal wave to the levelof the cliff. Then the sailors climbed into the trees, talking freely, in a speech which Queen Mab knew for English, but not at all the Englishshe had been accustomed to hear. Also the sailors had among them menwith full, sleek, shining faces, wearing tall hats and long coats, andcarrying little books whose edges flashed in the sun. And Queen Mab didnot like the look of them. Then she heard the sailors and the men inblack coats making straight for the very pine-tree in which she wassitting. So she fled into a myrtle-bush, and behold, the sailors choppedevery branch of the pine clean away, and changed the beautiful treeinto a bare pole. Then they brought out ropes, and a great piece of thincloth, white with red and blue cross marks on it, and they tugged it up, and it floated from the top of the tree. Then the people from the shipgathered round it, and sang songs, whereof one repeated, 'Rule Britannia!'

and the other contained the words, 'Every prospect pleases, And only Man is vile. '

Soon some specimens of vile Man, some of the human beings of Samoa, cameround, beautiful women dressed in feathers and leaves, carrying flowersand fruit, which they offered to the men in black coats and whiteneckties. But the men in black coats held up their hands in horror, andshut their eyes, while some of them ran to the boat and brought bonnets, and boots, and cotton gowns, and pocket-handkerchiefs, and gave them tothe women. And the women, putting them on anyhow, walked about as proudas peacocks; while the men in black coats explained that, unless theywore these things, and did and refrained from many matters, they wouldall be punished dreadfully after they were dead. Now, while the womenwere crying at such glad tidings, came another awful crash and shock, which indeed, like the previous noise that had frightened the dancers, was produced by a ship's gun. And another cloud of black smoke floatedround the point, and another set of sailors got out and cut the branchesoff a tree, and ran up a flag which was black and red and yellow. Thenthose sailors (who had men with red beards and spectacles among them)cried _Hock!_ and sang the _Wacht am Rhein_. Thereupon the sailors ofthe first steamer, with a horrid yell, rushed on the tree under the newflag, and were cutting it down, when some of the singers of the _Wachtam Rhein_ pointed a curious little machine that way and began to turna handle. Thereon the most dreadful cracking sounds arose, cracking andcrashing; fire flew, and some of the first set of sailors fell down andwrithed on the sand, while the rest fled to their boat. Several of thenative women also fell down bleeding and dying in their new cotton gownsand their bonnets, for they had been dancing about while the sailorswere hacking at the tree with the black and red and yellow flag. 

Seeing all this, Queen Mab also saw that Samoa was no longer a place forher. She did not understand what was happening, nor know that a peacefulEnglish annexation had been disturbed by a violent German annexation, for which the English afterwards apologised. Queen Mab also conceiveda prejudice against missionaries, which, perhaps, was justified by herexperience. For, in the matter of missionaries, she was unlucky. Thespecimens she had observed were of the wrong kind. She might have metmissionaries as learned as Mr. Codrington, as manly as Livingstone, asbrave and pure as Bishop Pattison> who was a martyr indeed, and gavehis life for the heathen people. Yes, Queen Mab was unlucky in hermissionaries. 

CHAPTER II. -- DISILLUSIONS. 

 'The time is come, ' the walrus said, 'To talk of many things. ' 'Alice in Wonderland. '

It was on April 1, the green young year's beginning, that Mab arrived inEngland. She had hired a seagull--no, the seagull offered his servicesfor nothing; I was forgetting that it was not an English, but aPolynesian seagull--to take her across. She did not altogether admirethe missionaries, as we have seen, in their proceedings, the fact beingthat she had grown used to Polynesians in the course of the centuriesshe had spent among them, and the missionaries were such a remarkablecontrast to the Polynesians. But their advent was certainly a sourceof mental improvement to her, for fairies as we know, understand thingsalmost by instinct, and Queen Mab, one evening, chanced to overhear agood deal of the missionaries' conversation. She learned, forinstance, the precise meanings, and the bearings on modern theologyand metaphysics, of such words as kathenotheism, hagiography, transubstantiation, eschatology, Positivist, _noumenony begriffyvorstellung, Paulisimus, wissenschaft_, and others, quite new to her, and of great benefit in general conversation. 

With this additional knowledge she started on the voyage, leaving herfaithful subjects to take care of the island and themselves, till shecame back to tell them whether their return to England would ever bepracticable. She landed in Great Britain, then, on April 1, and theseagull went across to the Faroe Islands and waited there till the timewhich she had appointed for him to come and carry her back to Polynesia. 

Queen Mab found England a good deal altered. There were still fairycircles in the grass; but they were attributed, not to fairy dances, butto unscientific farming and the absence of artificial phosphates. Thecountry did not smell of April and May, but of brick-kilns and themanufacture of chemicals. The rivers, which she had left bright andclear, were all black and poisonous. Water for drinking purposes wastherefore supplied by convoys from the Apollinaris and other foreignwells, and it was thought that, if a war broke out, the natives ofEngland would die of thirst. This was not the only disenchantment ofQueen Mab. She found that in Europe she was an anachronism. She didnot know, at first, what the word meant, but the sense of it graduallydawned upon her. Now there is always something uncomfortable about beingan anachronism; but still people may become accustomed to it, and eventake a kind of a pride in it, if they are only anachronisms on the rightside--so far in the van of the bulk of humanity, for instance, that thebulk of humanity considers them not wholly in their right minds. Theremust surely be a sense of superiority in knowing oneself a century ortwo in front of one's fellow-creatures that counterbalances the senseof solitude. Queen Mab had no such consolation. She was an anachronismhundreds of years on the wrong side; in fact, a relic of Paganism. 

Of course she was acquainted with the language of all the beasts andbirds and insects, and she counted on their befriending her, howevermuch men had changed. Her brief experience of modern sailors andmissionaries, whether English or German, had indeed convinced her thatmen were, even now, far from perfection. But it was a crushing blow tofind that all the beasts were traitors, and all the insects. 

If it had not been for the loyal birds she would have gone back toPolynesia at once; but they flocked faithfully to her standard, led bythe Owl, the wisest of all feathered things, who had lived too long, and had too much good feeling to ignore fairies, though he was, perhaps, just a little of a prig. The insects, however, who, considering the sizeof their brains, one might have thought would believe in fairies and inthe supernatural in general, if anybody did, behaved disgracefully, andthe ant was the worst all. She started by saying that _her_ brain waslarger in proportion than the brain of any other insect. Perhaps QueenMab was not aware that Sir John Lubbock had devoted a volume to thefaculties and accomplishments of ants, together with some minor detailsrelating to bees and wasps, of which these insects magnified theimportance. Under _these_ circumstances, it was impossible for her tocountenance a mere vulgar superstition, like faith in fairies. Shebegged leave to refer Queen Mab to various works in the InternationalScientific Series for a complete explanation of her motives, andmentioned, casually, that she also held credentials from Mr. Romanes. Then, explaining that her character with the sluggard was at stake, shehurried away. Evidently she did not care to be seen talking to afairy. It may be mentioned here, however, that Queen Mab's faith inentomological nature was considerably shaken by the fact that when noone was looking at her the ant always folded up her work and went tosleep--though, if surprised in a siesta, she explained that she had onlyjust succumbed to complete exhaustion, and lamented that mind, thoughinfinitely superior to, was not yet independent of matter. 

The bees hummed much to the same tune. The Queen Bee recommended ourforeigner to read a work on 'Bees and Wasps, ' with a few minor detailsrelating to Ants, by Sir John Lubbock, in the International ScientificSeries. She was not, indeed quite so timid about her reputation asthe ant, and even volunteered to give her visitor an account of theformation of hexagonal cells by Natural Selection, culled from the pagesof the 'Origin of Species'; but she observed that, though her brainmight be smaller in proportion than the brains of some inferior insects, it was of finer quality, what there was of it, and that fairies weremerely an outgrowth of the anthropomorphic tendency which had beennoticed by distinguished writers as persisting even in the present day. Then she departed, humming gaily, to the tune of a popular hymn in the'Ancient and Modern' collection:

 'And gather honey all the day From every opening flower?

But the whole sad history of Queen Mab's failures to enlist sympathy andprotection it would be vain to tell. The fishes, all that were left ofthem, took her part; but they lived in the water, and she had never hadvery much to do with them. In the birds she found her true allies. Theywere not attached to the higher civilisation. The higher civilisation, so far, had treated them inconsiderately, at sparrow clubs. The Owltalked a good deal about the low moral tone of the human race in thisrespect, and was pessimistic about it, failing to perceive that highertypes of organisms always like to signify their superiority over lowerones by shooting them, or otherwise making their lives a burden. TheOwl, however, was a very talented bird, and one felt that even hisfallacies were a mark of attainments beyond those common to his race. Hehad read and thought a great deal, and could tell Queen Mab about almostanything she asked him. This was pleasant, and she sat with him on avery high oak in Epping Forest, above a pond, and made observations. It was lovely weather, just the weather for sitting on the uppermostbranches of a great oak, and she began to feel like herself again. Shehad forgotten to put her invisible cloak on; but as she was only half afoot high, and dressed in green, no one saw her up there. Having reachedthe Forest at night, she had met as yet with few British subjects; butthe Owl explained that she would see hundreds of them before the day wasover, coming to admire Nature. 

'The English people, ' he observed, 'are great worshippers of Nature, andwrite many guide-books about her, some on large paper at ten guineas thevolume. I have sometimes fancied, indeed, ' he added, doubtfully, ' thatit was their own capacity for admiring Nature that they admired, butthat were a churlish thought. For, do they not run innumerable excursiontrains for the purpose of bowing at her shrine? Epping Forest must beone of Nature's favourite haunts, from the numbers of people who comehere to worship her, especially on Bank Holidays. Those are her highfestivals, when her adorers troop down, and build booths and whirligigsand circuses in her honour, and gamble, and ride donkeys, and shy sticksat cocoanuts before her. Also they partake of sandwiches and many otherappropriate offerings at the shrine, and pour libations of bottled ale, and nectar, and zoedone, and brandy, and soda-water, and ginger-beer. They _always_ leave the corks about, and confectionery paper bags, forthe next people to gaze upon who come to worship Nature: you may seethem now, if you look down. I have often thought those corks, andcigar-ends, and such tokens that the British public always leavesbehind it, must be symbolical of something--offerings to Nature, youknow, an invariable part of the rite, and typical--well, the questionis, of what are they typical?' mused the Owl, getting beyond his depth, as he had a way of doing. 

'However, ' he resumed, 'it is certain that their devotion is strong, and they offer to Nature the sacrifices dearest to their own hearts, and probably dearest, therefore, to the heart of Nature. They cuttheir names all over her shrine, which is, I have no doubt, a welcomeattention; but they do not look at her any more than they can help, forthey stay where the beer is, and they are very warm, and flirt. '

'What is "flirt"?'

'A recreation, ' said the Owl decorously; 'a pastime. '

'And does _nobody_ believe in fairies?' sighed Queen Mab. 

'No, or at least hardly anyone. A few of the children, perhaps, and avery, very few grown-up people--persons who believe in Faith-healing andEsoteric Buddhism, and Thought-reading, and Arbitration, and PhoneticSpelling, can believe in anything, except what their mothers taught themon their knees. All of these are _in_ just now. '

'What do you mean by "in"?'

'In fashion; and what is fashionable is to be believed in. Why, youmight be the fashion again, ' said the Owl excitedly. 'Why not? and thenpeople would believe in _you_. What a game it all is, to be sure! Butthe fashions of this kind don't last, ' the bird added; 'they get snuffedout by the scientific men. '

'Tell me exactly who the scientific men are, ' said the fairy. 'I haveheard so much about them since I came. '

'They are the men. ' sighed the Owl, 'who go about with microscopes, that is, instruments for looking into things as they are not meant to belooked at and seeing them as they were never intended to be seen. Theyhave put everything under their microscopes, except stars and FirstCauses; but they had to take telescopes to the stars, because they wereso far off; and First Causes they examined by stethoscopes, which eachphilosopher applied to his own breast. But, as all the breasts aredifferent, they now call First Causes no business of theirs. They makemost things their business, though. They have had a good deal of troublewith the poets, because the poets liked to put themselves andtheir critics under their own microscopes, and they objected to themicroscopes of the scientific men. You know what poets are?'

'Yes, indeed, ' said Queen Mab, feeling at home on the subject. 'I haveforgotten a good many things, I daresay, with living in Polynesia, butnot about the poets. I remember Shakespeare very well, and Herrick is atmy court in the Pacific. '

'Ah, he was a great man, Shakespeare, almost too large for amicroscope!' said the Owl reflectively. They have put him under a goodmany since he died, however, especially German lenses. But we weretalking about the philosophers--another name for the scientific men--the men who don't know everything. '

'I should have thought they did, ' said Queen Mab. 

'No, ' said the Owl. 'It is the theologians who know everything, or atleast they used to do so. But lately it has become such a mark of mentalinferiority to know everything, that they are always casting it in eachother's teeth. It has grown into a war-cry with both parties: "You thinkyou know everything, " and it is hard for a bird to find out how it allbegan and what it is all about. I believe it sprang originally out ofthe old microscope difficulty. The philosophers wanted to put theologyunder the microscope, and the theologians excommunicated microscopes, and said theology ought never to be looked at except with the Eye ofFaith. Now the philosophers are borrowing an eye of Faith from thetheologians, and adding it on to their own microscope like another lens, and they have detected a kind of Absolute, a sort of a Something, theHigher Pantheism. I could never tell you all about it, and I don't evenknow whether they have really put theology under the microscope, or onlytheologians. '

'And the people worship St. George still?' asked Queen Mab, who, beingonly a fairy, and owning no soul, had private theories of belief, basedmerely on observation of popular customs. 

'Oh yes, St. George and the Dragon. They have them both together on thebeads of their rosaries--the yellow things they count, and pray with, orpay with. ' said the Owl rather vaguely. 

'St. George _and the Dragon!_ Why, St. George killed the Dragon. '

'Ah! the Dragon was not really killed. ' said the Owl coolly. 'It wasonly syncope, and he kept quiet for a time, and grew seven other headsworse than the first. Some say St George worships the Dragon now, himself; but people always are saying unpleasant things, and probably itisn't true. At all events, the English worship St George and the Dragontill they don't seem to know which is which. '

'What, has St George grown like the Dragon then?' cried Queen Mabdistractedly, wringing her hands. 

'Oh no, ' replied the Owl, with some condescending pity for theforeigner's ignorance. 'But the Dragon has grown vastly like St. George. '

'Is that all they worship?' said Queen Mab. 

'Oh no, there are plenty of other patent religions. A hundred religionsand only one sauce--melted butter, as the Frenchman said, but the saucehas outlived many of the patent religions. '

'I don't understand how religions are patent. ' remarked her inquisitiveMajesty. 

'We call it a patent religion. ' said the Owl, 'when it has only beenrecently invented, and is so insufficiently advertised, that it isonly to be found in a very few houses indeed, and is not a commodity ingeneral request. The Patentees then call themselves a Church, and devotetheir energies to advertising the new "Cult, " as they generally styleit. For example, you have Esoteric Buddhism, so named because it is notBuddhism, nor Esoteric. It is imported by an American company witha manufactory in Thibet, and has had some success among fashionablepeople. '

'What do the Esoteric Buddhists worship?'

'Teacups and cigarettes, standing where they ought not. ' replied theowl; 'but I believe these things are purely symbolical, and that _aufond_ the Priestess of Esoteric Buddhism herself adores the Dragon. '

'That is enough about _that_. Are there no patent religions warrantedfree from Dragon worship?'

'Well. ' said the Owl dubiously, 'there are the Altruists. '_They_worship humanity. As a rule, you may have noticed that adorers think theobject of adoration better than themselves, --an unexpected instance inmost cases, of the modesty of their species. But the Altruists worshipHumanity. '

'And they don't think Humanity better than themselves?'

'Far from it. Their leading idea is that they are the cream of Humanity. Their principal industry is to scold and lecture Humanity. WhateverHumanity may be doing--making war or making peace, or making love to itsDeceased Wife's Sister--the Altruists cry out, "Don't do that. " Andthey preach sermons to Humanity, always beginning, "We think;" and theypublish their remarks in high-class periodicals, and they invariablyshow that everyone, and especially Mr. Herbert Spencer, is in thewrong, and nobody pays the slightest attention to them. In their way theAltruists do to others as they would have others do to them, To my mind, while they pretend that Humanity is what they worship, they really wantto be worshipped by Humanity. '

'Are there many of this sect?' asked Mab. 

'There were twenty-seven of them. ' said the Owl, 'but they quarrelledabout canonising the Emperor Tiberius, and now there are only thirteenand a half. '

'Where do you get the fraction?' said Mab. 

'That is a mystery. ' said the Owl. 'Every religion should have itsmystery, and the Altruists possess only this example; it is a cheap one, but they are not a luxurious sect. '

'Well. ' said Mab mournfully at last, 'I must go back to Samoa; there istoo much mystery here for me. But who is that?'

She broke off suddenly, for a new and mysterious object had just enteredthe glade, and was advancing towards the pool. 

'Hush!' said the Owl. 'Do take care. It is a scientific man--aphilosopher. '

It was a tall, thin personage, with spectacles and a knapsack, and whatreminded Queen Mab of a small green landing-net, but was really intendedto catch butterflies. He came up to the pond, and she imagined he wasgoing to fish; but no, he only unfastened his knapsack and took somesmall phials and a tin box out of it Then, bending down to the edgeof the water, he began to skim its surface cautiously with a ladle andempty the contents into one of his phials. Suddenly a look of delightcame into his face, and he uttered a cry--'Stephanoceros!'

Queen Mab thought it was an incantation, and, trembling with fear, she relaxed her hold of the bough and fell. Not into the pond! She hadwings, of course, and half petrified with horror though she was, she yetfluttered away from that stagnant water. But alas, in the very effortto escape, she had caught the eye of the Professor; he sprang up--pond, animalcule all forgotten in the chase of this extraordinary butterfly. The fairy's courage failed her: her presence of mind vanished, and thewild gyrations of the owl, who, too late, realised the peril of hiscompanion, only increased her confusion. In another moment she was aprisoner under the butterfly-net. 

Beaming with delight, the philosopher turned her carefully into the tinbox, shut the lid and hastened home, too much enraptured with his prizeeven to pause to secure the valuable Stephanoceros. 

But Queen Mab had fainted, as even fairies must do at such a terriblecrisis; and perhaps it was as well that she had, for the professorforbore to administer chloroform, under the impression that his lovelycaptive had completely succumbed. He put her, therefore, straight into atall glass bottle, and began to survey her carefully, walking round andround. Truly, he had never seen such a remarkable butterfly. 

CHAPTER III. -- THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION. 

 'Rough draughts of Man's Beginning God!' Swinburne. 

When Queen Mab recovered consciousness she heard the sound of violentvoices in the room before she opened her eyes, which she did half hopingto find herself the victim of some terrible delusion. But the sight ofthe professor, standing not a yard away, brought a fatal conviction toher heart. It was too true. Was there ever a more undesirable positionfor a fairy, accustomed to perfect freedom, and nourished by honey andnectar, than to be closely confined in a tall bottle, with smooth hardslippery walls that she could not pierce, and nothing to live upon buta glass-stopper! It was absurd; but it was also terrible. How ferventlyshe wished, now, that the missionaries had never come to Polynesia. 

But the professor was not alone, two of his acquaintances were there--adivine veering towards the modern school, and a poet--the ordinary poetof satire and Mr. Besant's novels, with an eye-glass, who held thatthe whole duty of poets at least was to transfer the meanderings ofthe inner life, or as much of them as were in any degree capable oftransmission, to immortal foolscap. . Unfortunately, as he observed with amixture of pride and regret, the workings of his soul were generally soethereal as to baffle expression and comprehension; and, he was wont tosay, mixing up metaphors at a great rate, that he could only stand, likethe High Priest of the Delphic oracle, before the gates of his innerlife, to note down such fragmentary utterances as 'foamed up from thedepths of that divine chaos. ' for the benefit of inquiring minds witha preference for the oracular. He added that cosmos was a condition ofgrovelling minds, and that while the thoughts, faculties, and emotionsof an ordinary member of society might fitly be summed up in the epithet'microcosm. ' his own nature could be appropriately described onlyby that of 'microchaos. ' In which opinion the professor always fullycoincided. 

With the two had entered the professor's little boy, a motherless childof eight, who walked straight up to the bottle. 

No sooner did the child's eyes light on the vessel than a curious thingoccurred. He fell down on his knees, bowed his head, and held up hishands. 

'Great Heavens!' cried the professor, forgetting himself, 'what do Ibehold! My child is praying (a thing he never was taught to do), andpraying to a green butterfly! Hush! hush!' the professor went on, turning to his friends. 'This is terrible, but most important. The childhas never been allowed to hear anything about the supernatural--his poormother died when he was in the cradle--and I have scrupulously shieldedhim from all dangerous conversation. There is not a prayer-book in thehouse, the maids are picked Agnostics, from advanced families, and Iam quite certain that my boy has never even heard of the existence of abogie. '

The poet whistled: the divine took up his hat, and, with a pained look, was leaving the room. 

'Stop, stop!' cried the professor, 'he is doing something odd. '

The child had taken out of his pocket certain small black stones of apeculiar shape. So absorbed was he that he never noticed the presence ofthe men. 

He kissed the stones and arranged them in a curious pattern on thefloor, still kneeling, and keeping his eye on Mab in her bottle. At lasthe placed one strangely shaped pebble in the centre, and then began tospeak in a low, trembling voice, and in a kind of cadence:

 'Oh! you that I have tried to see, Oh! you that I have heard in the night, Oh! you that live in the sky and the water; Now I see you, now you have come: Now you will tell me where you live, And what things are, and who made them. Oh Dala, these stones are yours; These are the goona stones I find, And play with when I think of you. Oh Dala, be my friend, and never leave me Alone in the dark night. '

'As I live, it's a religious service, the worship of a green butterfly!'said the professor. At his voice the child turned round, and seeing themen, looked very much ashamed of himself. 

'Come here, my dear old man. ' said the professor to the child, who cameon being called. 

'What were you doing?--who taught you to say all those funny things?'

The little fellow looked frightened. 

'I didn't remember you were here. ' he said; 'they are things I say whenI play by myself. '

'And who is Dala?'

The boy was blushing painfully. 

'Oh, I didn't mean you to hear, it's just a game of mine. I play atthere being somebody I can't see, who knows what I am doing; a friend. '

'And nobody taught you, not Jane or Harriet?'

Now Harriet and Jane were the maids. 

'You never saw anybody play at that kind of game before?'

'No, ' said the child, 'nobody ever. ' 'Then, ' cried the professor, ina loud and blissful voice, 'we have at last discovered the origin ofreligion. It isn't Ghosts. It isn't the Infinite. It is worshippingbutterflies, with a service of fetich stones. The boy has returned toit by an act of unconscious inherited memory, derived from PalaeolithicMan, who must, therefore, have been the native of a temperate climate, where there were green lepidoptera. Oh, my friends, what a thing isinherited memory! In each of us there slumber all the impressions of allour predecessors, up to the earliest Ascidian. See how the domesticateddog, ' cried the professor, forgetting that he was not lecturing inAlbemarle Street, 'see how the domesticated dog, by inherited memory, turns round on the hearthrug before he curls up to sleep! He isunconsciously remembering the long grasses in which his wild ancestorsdwelt. Also observe this boy, who has retained an unconsciousrecollection of the earliest creed of prehistoric man. Behold himinstinctively, and I may say automatically, cherishing fetich stones(instead of marbles, like other boys) and adoring that green insect inthe glass bottle! Oh Science, ' he added rapturously, 'what will Mr. MaxMüller say now? The Infinite! Bosh, it's a butterfly!'

'It is my own Dala, come to play with me, ' said the boy. 

'It is a fairy, ' exclaimed the poet, examining Mab through his eyeglass. This he said, not that he believed in fairies any more than publishersbelieved in him, but partly because it was a pose he affected, partly to'draw' the professor. 

The professor replied that fairies were unscientific, and evenunthinkable, and the divine declared that they were too heterodox evenfor the advanced state of modern theology, and had been condemned byseveral councils, which is true. And the professor ran through allthe animal kingdoms and sub-kingdoms very fast, and proved quiteconclusively, in a perfect cataract of polysyllables, that fairiesdidn't belong to any of them. While the professor was recovering breath, the divine observed, in a somewhat aggrieved tone, that he for his partfound men and women enough for him, and too much sometimes. He alsowished to know whether, if his talented but misguided friend requiredsomething ethereal, angels were not sufficient, without his havingrecourse to Pagan mythology; and whether he considered Pagan mythologysuitable to the pressing needs of modern society, with a large surplusfemale population, and to the adjustment of the claims of reason andreligion. 

The poet replied, 'Oh, don't bother me with your theological conundrums. I give it up. See here, I am going to write a sonnet to this creature, whatever it is. Fair denizen--!'

'Of a glass bottle!' interrupted the professor somewhat rudely, and thedivine laughed. 

'No. Of deathless ether, doomed. '

'And that reminds me, ' said the professor, turning hastily, 'I mustexamine it under the microscope carefully, while the light lasts. '

'Oh father!' cried the child, 'don't touch it, it is alive!'

'Nonsense!' said the professor, 'it is as dead as a door-nail. Justreach me that lens. '

He raised the glass stopper unsuspiciously, then turned to adjust hisinstrument And even as he turned his captive fled. 

'There!' cried the boy. 

Like a flash of sunshine, Queen Mab darted upwards and floated throughthe open window. They saw her hover outside a moment, then she wasgone--back into her deathless ether. 

'I told you so!' exclaimed the poet, startled by this incident into amomentary conviction of the truth of his own theory. 

CHAPTER IV. -- THE POET AND THE PALÆONTO-THEOLOGIST

 'Puis nous fut dit que chose estrange ne leur sembloit estre deux contradictoires Vrayes en mode, en figure, et en temps. ' Pantagruel, v. Xxii. 

Moved by an uncontrollable impulse, they all three rushed out into thegarden; and far beyond them, in the sunlight, they did indeed catch oneparting gleam of gauzy wings, as the fairy vanished. When the professorled the way into the room again, and, rather crestfallen, looked at thetall empty bottle and the stopper, which in his hurry he had thrown downupon the floor. 

'She is gone!' sobbed the child. 'My beautiful Dala. I shall never seeher again. '

He was right; the professor and the theologian, between them, had scaredQueen Mab away pretty successfully. She would certainly neverrevisit that part of the city if she could help it. The divine lookeduncomfortable. In spite of himself he had recognised something strangeand unusual in the appearance of this last capture of his friend'sbutterfly-net, and almost unconsciously he began to ponder on the oldtheory that the Evil One might occasionally disguise himself as an angelof light. The poet, meanwhile, was more voluble. 

'Your soul is sordid!' he said indignantly to the professor. 'You haveno eyes for the Immaterial, the intangibly Ideal, that lies behind theshadowy and deceptive veil that we call Matter. '

'My soul, ' said the professor with equal indignation, 'that is, if Ihave got one, is as good as yours. '

'No, it isn't, ' said the poet; 'I am all soul, or nearly all. You arenothing but a mass of Higher Protoplasm. '

'No one need wish to be anything better. I should like to know, ' criedthe professor angrily, 'where we should all be without Protoplasm. '

'My friends, ' said the theologian, still rather confused, 'this heat isboth irreverent and irrational. Protoplasm is invaluable, but is it notalso transient? The flight of that butterfly may well remind us--'

'Stop!' interrupted the philosopher. '_Was_ it a butterfly? Now I cometo think of it, I hardly know whether to refer it to the lepidopteraor not. At all events, it is a striking example of the manner in whichnatural and sexual selection, continued through a series of epochs, canevolve the most brilliant and graceful combinations of tint and plumage, by simple survival of the favourable variations. '

'It is indeed, ' suggested the theologian, 'a remarkable proof of theintelligent construction of the universe, and of the argument fromdesign, that this insect should have been framed with such exquisiteperfection of form and colour to delight the eyes of the theologian. '

'Not at all, ' said the professor irritably. 'It was to delight theeyes of butterflies of the opposite sex. It is no more an argument fromdesign than I am!'

'Do stop that!' said the poet. 'How can a fellow write a sonnet withyou two for ever sparring away at your musty scholasticisms? Haven't weheard enough about Paley and Darwin? You have frightened away the fairybetween you, and that is plenty of mischief for one day. 

'Fair denizen of deathless ether, doomed For one brief hour to languishand repine. 

Entombed? That will do, but I'm afraid there are not many more rhymesto "doomed. " "Loomed, " "boomed, " "exhumed, " "well-groomed. " Mythoughts won't flow, hang it all!'

'You _are_ an argument for design, ' said the theologian, taking nonotice of the poet, 'though you won't admit it. Why won't you takeup with my scientific religion?--a religion, you know, that can beexpressed with equal facility by emotional or by mathematical terms. It is as easy, when you once understand it, as the first proposition inEuclid. You have two points, Faith and Reason, and you draw a straightline between them. Then you must describe an equilateral triangle--Imean a scientific religion, on the straight line, F R--between Faith andReason. '

'Oh!' said the professor. 'How do you do it?'

'First, ' said the theologian hopefully, 'taking F as your centre, F Ras your radius, describe the circle of Theology. Then, taking R as yourcentre, F R as your radius, describe the circle of Logic. These twocircles will intersect at Science, indicated in the proposition by thepoint S. Join together S F, and then join S R, and you will have theequilateral triangle of a scientific religion on the line F R S. '

'Prove it, ' said the professor grimly. 

'Science and Faith, ' replied the theologian readily, 'equal Faith andReason, because they are both radii of the same circle, Man being theRadius of the Infinite. Theology--'

'Stop!' ejaculated the professor in the utmost indignation. 'What do youmean by it? I never in my life listened to such unmitigated nonsense. Who gave you leave to talk of a scientific religion as an equilateraltriangle? If it is a triangle at all, which there is not the remotestreason to suppose--but I cannot argue with you? You might as well callit a dodecahedron, or the cube root of minus nothing. '

'Oh, very well, ' said the theologian with exasperating coolness. 'Ithought it possible that even your blind prejudice might not refuse tolisten to a simple mathematical demonstration of the possibility ofa true scientific religion, but I find that I was mistaken. I am notannoyed--not at all. I prefer to look with lenity upon this outburst ofpassion, which might, I admit, have roused the anger of a theologianof the old school. But, believe me, I personally feel towards you noenmity--only the profoundest compassion. '

Inarticulate sound from the professor. 

'I find in you, ' continued the theologian with benevolence, 'much totolerate, much even to admire. I regret that, formerly, some of mypredecessors may have been led, by your aggressive and turbulentspirit, to form unnecessarily harsh judgments of your character, and putunnecessarily tight thumbscrews on your thumbs; but as for me, I desireto win you by sympathy and affection and physico-theological afternoonparties, not to coerce you by vituperation. Your eye of Reason, as Ihave often observed, is already sufficiently developed; supplement itwith the eye of Faith, and you will be quite complete. It will then onlyremain for you to learn which objects it is necessary to view with whicheye, and carefully to close the other. This takes a little practice(which must not be attempted in Society), but I am sure that a personof your attainments will easily master the difficulty. We will thenjoyfully receive you into our ranks. No sacrifice on your part will berequired; you will retain the old distinction of F. R. S. , of whichyou have always been justly proud; but we shall take the liberty ofconferring upon you the additional privilege of the honorary title ofD. D. '

The professor uttered a brief but trenchant observation, on which thetheologian was about to launch down a reply, less brief but equallytrenchant. But the poet, as his fate would have it, struck in, in thecapacity of a lightning conductor, and succeeded in turning the wrath ofboth combatants upon his own devoted head. 

'If you must quarrel, ' he cried, 'pray don't quarrel here. You wouldfight on the very peaks of Parnassus. I can't think of a word that willrhyme except "design. " Stop, now I have it:

'Bright messenger of the Celestial Nine, Now in translucent ambienceentombed. '

Celestial Nine is commonplace, but what can a man do in this region oftrivial souls? Soar, my mind! What does "ambience" mean, by the way?Never mind, if the Sublime is unfettered by literal meaning, all thebetter for the Sublime!'

At this the divine and the philosopher turned upon him together, as theywere wont to do every now and then. 

'This laxity of terms, ' said the professor, 'is unscientific andunpractical. '

'I am a poet, ' said the poet, 'I bow to no narrow machinery ofdefinitions. Words have a gemlike beauty and colour of their own. Theyare _not_ merely the signs of ideas--of thoughts. '

'I wish they were!' groaned the professor. 'They are with us. '

'The idea, ' continued the poet, 'must conform to the word, when the wordhonours the idea by making use of it. What care I for the conventional, the threadbare significance? My heart recognises, through the outervestment of apparent insanity, the inner adaptability. Soar, my mind!'

'And in this way, ' said the professor sternly, 'ignoring the greatprinciples of classification and generalisation, you let a chaos ofdisordered ideas abroad upon the universe, destroying all method anddefinite arrangement and retarding the great progress of Evolution!'

'A jewel-like word, a transfigured phrase, ' replied the poet, 'isworth all your scientific dictionaries and logic threshing-machines puttogether. Ruskin was in error. He tells us that Milton always meant whathe said, and said exactly what he meant. 

'This had been an ignoble exactitude. How can a man whose words areunbounded confine himself within the limits of an intellectual bound?

How can he, that is to say, know exactly what he means, in words, ormean exactly what, to souls less gloriously chaotic, his words appear toexpress? I have always felt this an insuperable difficulty. '

'I have no doubt of it, ' said the professor ironically. 'Now, ' he wenton, turning to the theologian, 'you see what comes of having too muchsoul. It is impossible but that such fixed attention to any one organshould prove injurious, even if the organ is not there. You really havea great deal to answer for, in encouraging this kind of monomania. '

'Not a bit of it, ' said the theologian indignantly. 'It comes of nothaving soul enough, or of allowing the sway the soul should exerciseto fall upon the feeble sceptre of imagination. If our misguided youngfriend had been thoroughly grounded in Paley's Evidences and scientificprimers--for these should never be separated--do you think we shouldhave heard anything about his chaotic soul? Not a bit of it. It wouldall have been as clear as an opera-glass, or as Mr. Joseph Cook'stheory of Solar Light. Why didn't his parents give him my "MathematicalExposition of Orthodoxy for Children, " or my "The Theology of Euclid, "on his birthdays, instead of Hans Andersen's "Fairy Tales" and the"Tales from the Norse?" It was very remiss of them. '

'On the contrary, ' said the professor, 'I should have recommended theentire elimination of doctrinal matter from his studies. I should haveguided him to a thorough investigation of the principle of all theNatural Sciences, with especial devotion to one single branch, as Botanyor Conchology, and an entire mastery of its terminology I should haveurged our gifted but destitute of all scientific method friend tothe observation and definition of objective phenomena, rather than tosubjective analysis, and turned his reflections--'

'Flow, my words!' said the poet dreamily. 'Soar, my mind!'

He had flung himself into the solitary armchair in a graceful anddistraught pose, and with half-closed eyes had fallen into a reverie. The divine and the professor stood and gazed at him despondently. 

'Such, ' said the divine, 'are the consequences of the lack of soundethical and eclectic principles in our day and generation!'

'Such, ' said the professor, 'are the pernicious results of a classicaltraining, the absence of a spirit of scientific research and a broad andphilosophical mental culture. '

Those readers who have not yet perused the poet's sonnet may recogniseit, of course, by the first line:

 'Fair denizen of deathless ether, doomed. '

It attracted a good deal of attention at the time. The public wereinformed, in the 'Athæenum, ' that the poet was engaged on a sonnet, andthe literary world was excited, but, not having the key, could not makeout what on earth it meant. Meanwhile the professor's paper in 'Nature, 'which appeared in the course of the same week, being written from awholly different standpoint, did not tend to elucidate the mystery. Thelatter merely described the locality in which the fairy, or butterfly, as the professor called it, was found, and the circumstances of itscapture and escape, with such an account of its manifold peculiarities, and the reasons to suppose it an entirely new genus, that Epping Forestwas as much haunted for the next two or three months by naturalists onthe watch, as by 'Arries making holiday. Our professor himself visitedthe fairy's pond several times, in the company of the poet, with whomhe soon patched up a reconciliation. But Queen Mab, in the meantime, hadtaken her departure. 

The professor also sent to the 'Spectator' an account of the Origin ofReligion, as developed by his little boy, under his very eyes. But theeditor thought, not unnaturally, that it was only the professor's fun, and declined to publish it, preferring an essay on the Political Rightsof the Domesticated Cat. 

CHAPTER V. -- ST. GEORGE FOR MERRY ENGLAND

 'Geese are swans, and swans are geese, ' M. Arnold. 

At first Mab was so overwhelmed at the nature of her reception byScience and Theology, that she meditated an immediate return toPolynesia; but the birds implored her so pathetically to stay longer, that she yielded, and went with the owl into Surrey. She had seen enoughof Epping Forest. 

Surrey was very beautiful, and once pleasantly established in RichmondPark, she watched the human life that seemed so strange to her withgreat interest, taking care nevertheless, for some time, to keep clearof anything that looked like a scientific man. The owl supported her inthis policy. He was not intimately acquainted with any of the membersof the learned societies, but he had a deeply-rooted and perhapsoverstrained horror of vivisection. Still, being a liberal-minded bird, he extenuated the professor's conduct as far as possible. 

'Perhaps he did not mean to do you any harm, ' he suggested. 'He onlywanted to put you under the microscope. '

'He might have had more sense, then?' returned Queen Mab, still ruffled. 'He might have seen that I was a fairy. The child suspected something atonce. '

'Ah, he was an exceptional child, ' said the Owl. 'Most of the children, nowadays, don't believe anything. In fact, now that education isspreading so widely, I don't suppose one of them will in ten years'time. '

'It is very dreadful, ' said Queen Mab. 'What are we coming to?'

'I am sure I don't know, ' said the Owl. 'But we are being educated upto a very high point. It saves people the trouble of thinking forthemselves, certainly; they can always get all their thoughts now, readymade, on every kind of subject, and at extremely low prices. They onlyhave to make up their minds what to take, and generally they take thecheapest. There is a great demand for cheap thought just now, especiallywhen it is advertised as being of superior quality. '

'How do they buy it?' asked Queen Mab. 'I don't quite understand. '

'Well, you know a little about Commerce. Education is another kindof commerce. The authors and publishers are the wholesale market, andteachers and schools and colleges are a kind of retail dealers. Ofcourse, not being human, we can't expect to find it quite clear, butthat is what we _do_ make out. The kingfisher and I were listeninglately to a whole course of lectures on Political Economy; we were ona skylight in the roof of the building, and we found that PopularEducation was part of the system of co-operation. The people who don'tthink, you know, but want thoughts, hand education over to the peoplewho do think, or who buy up old thoughts cheap, and remake them, andthis class furnishes the community. So that, by division of labour, noone is obliged to think who doesn't want to think, and this saves anyamount of time and expense. It is really astonishing, I hear, how fewpeople have to think under this new system. But Thought is in greatdemand, as I said, and so is Knowledge--whether there was any differencebetween the two we could not quite gather. It is a law that everyonemust buy a certain quantity from the dealers: in other words, educationis compulsory. Eating is _not_ compulsory; you _may_ starve, you_must_ learn. The Government has founded a large system of retailestablishments, or schools, and up to a certain age all the children aretaught there whose parents do not undertake to have them suppliedwith thoughts at other establishments. I say thoughts, but it is factsprincipally that they acquire. Of course, some thoughts are necessary tomix the facts together with; but they generally take as few aspossible, because facts are a cheaper article, and by the principles ofcompetition and profit, people use the cheapest article that will sellagain for the same price. Some writers say that thoughts at retailestablishments are very inferior, and that customers had better go towholesale dealers at once, or else make on the premises; but I don'tknow about that. Generally people buy the kind that comes handiest;they are not half so particular about them as about articles of food anddress, and the dealers, wholesale or retail, can sell almost anythingthey like if they have a good reputation. History, languages, science, art, theology, are all so many departments. Politics are always indemand, and there are many great manufacturers who issue supplies ata penny, every day, all over the kingdom. There is no branch where thelabourers employed have such stirring times as the makers of politics:we call them statesmen. They seem, however, rather to enjoy it, and Isuppose they get used to the heat, like stokers. I think that the burdenof the whole scheme really falls most heavily on the children. But youare tired. '

'Tell me about the children, ' said Queen Mab. 'I shall understand thatbetter. '

'They have to learn facts, facts, for ever facts, ' said the Owlcompassionately. 'It makes one's head ache to think of it. I am a prettywell educated bird myself, though I say it; but if I had spent my timein acquiring a quarter of the knowledge those children have to acquire, then I should certainly never have been able to look at things in thebroadly scientific light in which they should be looked at. It does notseem to matter what the facts are, so long as they are cheap and plentyof them; it does not even matter whether they are true, or, at least, that is of very minor importance. But see! see there! That is an exampleof what I have been telling you. '

A child was passing below them with a weary step. Queen Mab trembled atthe sight of him, secure as she was among the broad chestnut leaves, andher fear was justified, for in another moment the professor himself cameinto view. The fairy-had seen the child before, and, as Mr. Trollopeused to say, 'she had been to him as a god'--it was the professor'slittle boy. But this time the philosopher was without his butterfly-net, and she found him much less alarming. He was occupied with the pale, tired child, and telling him charming stories about coral islands, thatsounded to Queen Mab's astonished ears almost like a real fairy tale. They sat down, while the professor talked. Wonderful things he told, andsaid not a word all the time about generalisation or classification. 

'It is like a fairy tale, ' said the boy, echoing Queen Mab's thought, when at last they rose to go. 'Oh, father, how I wish we could see Dalaagain!'

'Dala, my boy? What, the lepidoptera? Ah, I wish we could! Youwill find, as you grow older, Walter, that science is better than abutterfly. '

The boy looked up wistfully, and over the face of the philosopher, too, came a sudden shadow. When Walter grew older? Hand in hand, the twopassed silently out of sight. 

'He is a good man, after all, ' said the Owl sententiously. And thenthere came by a British manufacturer, in a gold watch-chain and patentcreaking leather boots, warranted to creak everywhere without losingtone. 

'Who is that?' asked Queen Mab. 

'It is one of the pillars of the Church, ' replied the Owl. 'The Dragon'schurch, I mean, where he is worshipped by himself. In some placesyou may worship St. George and the Dragon together; but in the StockExchange, for instance, you may only worship the Dragon. '

'Is the Dragon very wicked?'

'I don't know, ' said the Owl. 'I think he can't be, or else so manyrespectable people would not worship him. The professor doesn't, or verylittle; but then he doesn't worship St. George either. The people whoworship the Dragon are sometimes called Snobs--not by themselves though;it is one of the marks of the true Snob that he never knows he is one. They never call the Dragon by that name either. He has as many othernames as Jupiter used to have, and all the altars, and temples, andsacrifices are made to him under the other names. '

'Sacrifices!' exclaimed Queen Mab. 'What do they sacrifice?'

'It would be shorter to say what they _don't_ sacrifice, ' replied theOwl. 'Only nobody knows, for many of his worshippers sacrifice anythingand everything. The manufacturer you saw go past--'

'Yes, ' said Queen Mab, a good deal impressed, for the owl was speakingsolemnly. 

'He is sacrificing the happiness, and even the lives of hundreds of menand women. Also the playtime of the children and their innocence. As forhis own peace and charity, he sacrificed them long ago. And yet--it isvery strange; he calls himself a worshipper of St. George. You remember, in very early times there used to be sacrifices to the Dragon. '

'I remember, ' said the fairy. 'In wicker baskets. But never anything. Like this!'

'I daresay not, ' said the Owl 'We do things on a larger scale now, sacrifices and all. Everybody prefers, of course, to make sacrificesof the belongings of other people; but there are certain possessions oftheir own that unavoidably go too--as Truth, Sympathy, Justice; abstractnouns, the names of any quality, property, state or action, ' murmuredthe Owl, falling unconsciously into his old habit of parsing. 'TheEnglish, ' he added, 'are very generous with their abstract nouns, andwill sacrifice or give away any quantity of them. It is a nationalcharacteristic, of which they are justly proud. '

'Do the women worship the Dragon?'

'Certainly!' said the Owl. 'They generally profess a great deal ofveneration for St. George too; but they will worship either to get frontseats. I don't know why the English are so fond of front seats; backones are just as comfortable, and one can often hear better in them; butthey don't suit dragon-worshippers. They want front seats anywhere--atconcerts, in the church, in art or literature, or even in subscriptionlists. The persons who can't afford front seats generally adore thosewho can, and those who can, say that the others ought to be grateful toProvidence for putting them in the gallery or letting them into the freepews. There is a great deal of veneration in the English, and it showsitself in this way; they reverence the people with reserved tickets. That is why they are so fond of a noble lord, and that is why theyadmire Abraham, and even Lazarus, because he ultimately got such anexcellent place in the next world. They don't care much about Lazarus inthis, because their souls have not such a natural affinity with his whenhe is hanging about anyone's doorstep, or loafing round street-cornerswith oranges to sell or a barrel-organ. Sometimes they give him thecrumbs that fall from their tables, and sometimes they don't, becausethey are afraid he will take advantage of it to steal the spoons. Orelse they take the lofty patriotic ground, and say that their principlesforbid them to countenance vagrancy, and that Heaven helps those whohelp themselves. This is very consoling to Lazarus, and it always giveshim pleasure to hear what good moral principles the Philistines--orSnobs--have got, even if he hasn't got any himself. From what theyfrequently say, you would not think that they looked forward toseeing him in Heaven. It is part of their great-mindedness--a nationalcharacteristic--that the chords of their nature are more deeply stirredby sympathy with him when he has got into a good berth. I can fancyhow, in Paradise, a British Snob will edge round to some retiredcrossing-sweeper, who was converted by the Salvation Army, and wentstraight up among the front row of angels and prophets, and will say:

'"Pardon me; but I remember you _so_ well!" And I can fancy that theseraph might reply:

'"Ah, yes! I used to sweep a crossing up your street. I asked you for acopper once, and you told me to go--not where you find me. "

'It would be a little awkward for the Snob: things often are; buthe would soon get over it. His sense of locality, you perceive, isextremely acute. He may not always know at a glance exactly what men arein themselves, but he can always tell _where_ they are. If you put oneof Madame Tussaud's waxworks into a front seat, or on a Woolsack, or ona Board of Directors, the English would venerate it more than most realpersons. Their sensibilities are so strong that the merest symbol stirsthem. A noble lord need not do anything remarkable; but he is in thefront row, and if he just radiates ability, that is quite enough. Andhe can't help radiating "ability;" it is one of his characteristics, andhas become automatic. '

'What is automatic?'

'Automatic! Oh, it means acting of its own accord, without any effort ofthe will to make it work. Automatic actions may go on a very long timewithout stopping, sometimes for ever. If I continued in this strain muchlonger it might get automatic too: speaking often does, especially withMembers of Parliament. It is as if they were wound up to say similarthings one after the other, like musical-boxes, by reflex action, andyou never know when they will give up. The automatic method has thisadvantage, that when you have had some experience of an automaton, youcan always tell--suppose that it is wound up, for instance, to speakon a motion--what it will probably say next, and certainly how it willvote, and that gives you a sense of calm peace. It is a method verycommon among stump orators, because it comes cheaper in the long run. But there are other things--novel-writing, for instance. Novelists, manyof them, are wound up at the beginning to write novels periodically, andthe action gradually gets feebler and feebler, till at last it stops. Itdoes not, however, generally stop till they die, and that is why we haveso many bad novels from some writers. All authors, though, don't writeautomatically, any more than all clergymen preach automatically. But itis a very easy habit to fall into: I have done it myself more than once. Of course it is very useful, and very inexpensive, and an immense savingof energy, and one would advise the rising generation to cultivate itas much as possible, that their years may be long in the land. But oneought never to allow such a habit as swearing, --or shooting, ' added theOwl gravely, 'to become automatic. Let me see, where did I begin? I wastelling you about the female dragon-worshippers, who dress in symbolicalcostumes, like the old priestesses or the Salvation Army captains. Lately, though, a good many of the women who were brought up to it havetaken "a new departure, " and gone off after the wholesale educationestablishments at Camford, where they are fed on biscuits and marmalade, and illuminate the fragments of Sappho on vellum. This may not be verygood: still I think it is better than the Dragon; the worst of it isthat it forces up the educational prices. '

With which remark the Owl began a long series of observations, a mixtureof political economy and his views on popular education, which Queen Mabfound rather tedious. But they inspired her with a few verses, whichshe resolved, being the most philanthropic of fairies, and full ofcompassion for the dreary state of Great Britain in general, and ofthe rising generation in particular, to circulate among the Polynesianchildren as soon as she returned home. In this determination, unfortunately, she either forgot or ignored the fact that she hadleft her happy island a prey to the combined effects of annexation, civilisation, and evangelisation. But the verses ran thus:

 'Upon my childhood's pallid morn No tropic summer smiled, In foreign lands I was not born, A happy, heathen child. 

 Alas! but in a colder clime, A cultured clime, I dwell All in the foremost ranks of time, They say: I know it well. 

 _You_ never learn geography, No grammar makes you wild, A book, a slate you never see, You happy, heathen child. 

 I know in forest and in glade Your games are odd but gay, Think of the little British maid, Who has no place for play. 

 When ended is the day's long joy, And you to rest have gone, Think of the little British boy, Who still is toiling on. 

 The many things we learn about, We cannot understand. Ah, send your missionaries out To this benighted land!

 You blessed little foreigner, In weather fair and mild, Think of the tiny Britisher, Oh, happy heathen child. 

 Ah! highly favoured Pagan, born In some far hemisphere, Pity the British child forlorn, And drop one sorrowing tear!'

CHAPTER VI. -- JUSTICE AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY. 

 'They will soon be here, They are upon the road, ' John Gilpin. 

'I should like, ' said Queen Mab one day, 'to go and see the City. Do youthink it would be safe?'

'Yes, ' said the Owl, 'if you fly out of the way of the smoke and thenet of overhead wires, and take care not to be suffocated, and not togo near the Houses of Parliament, nor the Bank, nor St. Paul's, nor theExchange, nor any great public building. And if you keep clear of allthe bridges, and the railway stations, and Victoria Embankment, and gothe other way whenever you see a person carrying a black bag. '

'Why?' inquired Queen Mab, a good deal mystified. 

'Because all these places, ' said the Owl, 'are in danger of being blownup. If you could get a Home Ruler to take you round now; but I'm afraidit wouldn't do, as he might put you into an explosion and leave youthere, as likely as not. Besides, I was forgetting, you are immortal, aren't you? You _couldn't_ be blown up? If so, it is all right. '

'I don't suppose I could, ' said Queen Mab a little doubtfully, 'butstill I shouldn't care to try. What is it like?'

'I don't know, ' replied her mentor. 'I have never tried it myself. Youhad better ask Mr. Bradlaugh, or some eminent popular sciolist Huxleyor Spencer would do. They have been exploding or blowing up populartheology for a number of years, and popular theology and Mr. Joseph Cookhave been exploding them. As far as I can make out, they both appearto think it very good fun. But I was going to tell you about theblack bags, which are filled with dynamite, a very explosivethough inexpensive substance indeed, and carried by persons called"dynamiters. " These bags are left at large in public buildings, whilethe dynamitards go away, and as soon as their owners turn the cornerthe bags explode and blow up the buildings, and anyone who happens to beabout. '

'Why do they do it?' exclaimed Queen Mab, breathless. 

'Nobody seems to know, ' said the Owl. 'It is one of the problems of thenineteenth century. Even the dynamiters themselves don't appear to havegone into the whole logic of it I suppose that they are tired ofonly blowing things up on paper, and they are people who have a greatobjection to things in general. They complain that they can't getjustice from the universe in its present state of preservation, andtherefore they are going to blow as much of it as possible into whatthey call _smithereens_, and try to get justice from the smithereens. Itis a new scheme they have hit upon, a kind of scientific experiment. The theory appears to be, that justice is the product of Nihilismplus public buildings blown up by dynamite, and that the more publicbuildings they blow up the more justice they will obtain. I hear thatthey have also started a company for supplying statesmen, and all publicorators except Home Rulers, with nitro-glycerine jujubes to improve thevoice. Nitro-glycerine is a kind of condensed dynamite. A City sparrowtold me--but perhaps it was only his fun--that they were borrowing themoney from the Government, under the pretext of applying it to a fundfor presenting three-and-sixpenny copies of Jevons' "Logic" to Membersof Parliament who can't afford to buy the book for themselves. It isreported, also, that if the Nihilists can't obtain justice enough byany less extensive measures, they will lower a great many kegs ofnitro-glycerine to the molten nucleus of the globe, and then--'

'Then?' said Queen Mab, much excited. 

'Then the globe will explode, and all the inhabitants, even thedynamiters themselves; but justice will remain; according to the theory, that is. But it is rather an expensive experiment. '

'How dreadful!' said the fairy. 'Do you think I had better not go toLondon?'

'I think you might, ' replied the Owl thoughtfully. 'There would bea little risk certainly; but you could fly high, and remember thatdynamite strikes downwards. You had better take the sparrow, though, forI'm afraid I should attract too much attention. Otherwise I should liketo go with you. '

'I will make us both invisible, ' said Queen Mab. 'That will be easy. '

'Oh, very well, if you do _that!_' And they started. 

'After all, ' said the Owl an hour later, 'as we _are_ here, andinvisible, we may as well rest on the dome of St. Paul's. Dynamitedoes strike downwards, and I don't see any black bags about, ' he added, looking round suspiciously. 

'All right, ' said the fairy. 'Now you can tell me all about things, ' forthey had been flying too fast to exchange many remarks. 'What is thisbuilding?'

'It is one of St. George's best churches, ' said the Owl. 

A burst of melancholy music swelled out below them as he spoke, andQueen Mab started with delight. 

'That is like Fairyland, ' she said promptly. 'What is it?'

'It is the organ and the choristers, ' said the Owl. 'If you fly down amoment you can look in; but don't wait long, because of the dynamite. Itwould be just like them, ' he added pensively, 'to blow it up when we arehere. '

Queen Mab obeyed, leaving the owl, still a little nervous, seatedinvisible on the dome. 

'I have heard the music, ' she said when she flew back, 'and seen thesingers, and the great golden pipes the music comes out of. What abeautiful big place it is! We have nothing like that in Polynesia. '

'No, I should think not, ' returned the bird. 'Look round you. Thatstreet where all the people and the vehicles are rushing up and down isCheapside. '

'Why do they all go so fast?' said the fairy. 

'Oh, for many reasons. Competition, struggle for existence, and allthat. They are in a normal condition, in that street, of having trainsto catch, and not having any time to catch them in. Besides, they aredragon-worshippers, most of them, and it is part of their religion towalk as fast as they can, not only through Cheapside but through life. The one who can walk fastest, and knock down the greatest number ofother people, gets a prize. '

'Who are the big men in black robes who stand at corners, and look as ifeverything belonged to them? Are they the owners of the City?'

'They are policemen, ' said the Owl. 'Products, ' he went on learnedly, 'of the higher civilisation, evolved to put the lower civilisation intoprisons. '

'What are prisons?'

'A kind of hothouses, ' said the Owl, 'for the culture of feeble moralprinciples that the Struggle for Existtence has been too much for. Theyare a wonderful system. The weak morality is supplied with bread andwater and a cell to develop in, and it is exercised on a treadmill, andallowed to expand and pick oakum, and so it is turned into a beautifulplant of virtue. '

'What do they do with it then?'

'Then they let it run wild, unless it comes across a Home Missionary, ora School Board, or Dr. Barnardo, and gets trained. '

'Oh!' said Queen Mab. 'Are there many of these hothouses?'

'A good many. You see, such a number of the members of the lower portionof the higher civilisation have moral principles that need training. Themoral principle is the latest product of evolution, or so the professorsays, and evolution has not yet got quite into the way of always turningit out first class. Like everything else, it wants practice. Some moralprinciples are excellent; but others are really bungles, and requireperiodical prison culture. At present we need policemen for thetransplanting; but it is hoped that, in the course of an era or two, theautomatic method will be so much further developed that a member of thehigher civilisation who gets very drunk, or steals, will put himself toprison at once, by reflex action. I told you about that: it is a lengthysubject; but the kingfisher and I quite mastered it one day, and Idaresay you will. It is much easier than portions of the Thirty-nineArticles. '

'I know what that is, ' said Queen Mab; 'the missionaries were talkingabout it once. '

'I have taken a good deal of trouble, ' said the Owl, 'but there wereparts of the Thirty-nine Articles I never could make out. They are akind of tinned theology, and so much tinned that no one appreciates thembut the theologians. '

'Why is the theology tinned?' asked the Queen. 'Why don't they have itfresh and fresh?'

'They like it old, ' said the Owl. 'They have tried various ways oftreating it, for theology does not keep well in a scientific atmosphere. Frozen theology has been experimented with by Archdeacon Farrar andothers, and has some vogue. But the popular taste prefers it tinned. And yet it is very tough, in Articles. I am surprised that no onehas written a simple explanation of them: "Primer of the Thirty-nineArticles, " "The Thirty-nine Articles made Easy, " or "Thirty-nineArticles for Beginners;" but no one ever has. It is a book that is verymuch needed, and if I had any influence with the theologians I would askthem to do it at once. In days like ours, when floods of Nonconformityand Socialism are pouring in on every hand, the very foundations ofChurch and State are being sapped for want of a plain popular guideta the Thirty-nine Articles, that a child could understand. A childcouldn't expect to find them clear in their present condensed state, could he now? But then, when I come to think of it, perhaps there is noreason why he should. ' And the owl fell into a reverie. 

After this they departed in search of a more sequestered resting-place, and ultimately alighted in Kensington Gardens. And there they cameupon a Democrat and an Aristocrat who was also a landholder, and theAristocrat was saying:

'What will you do without an aristocracy? What will you look up to?' 'Weshall do, ' said the Democrat, 'very well indeed. We shall do, in fact, agood deal better; for we shall be an aristocracy in ourselves, and lookup to ourselves, and reverence humanity. What, I should like to know, has the British aristocracy done for us?'

'We have set you an example, ' replied his companion impressively. 

'We have told you what to do and what not to do. We have employed you;we have let you vote for us; we have represented you in Church andState; we have given you a popular education; and a pretty use you havemade of it! We have, in short, ' he continued, trying hard to rememberthe popular maxim, 'cherished you like a viper, and you turn again andrend us. '

'All that, ' said the Democrat, 'you did because you couldn't help it. ''We have been, ' exclaimed the Aristocrat with deep pathos, 'as lightsin a benighted land. We have improved the breed of horses and cultivatedthe fine arts, and literature, and china, and the fashions, and Frenchcookery--'

'And drinking, and racing, and gambling, and betting, andpigeon-shooting, ' put in the Democrat thoughtfully. 'So you have. '

'We have come to church, ' continued the Aristocrat unheeding, 'and youhave surveyed us from the free seats--when you were there. I regret tosay that your attendance at the established places of worship has beenfar from satisfactory. We have allowed you to pay us the highest rentsyou could afford, solely to develop in you the sense of competitionand a stimulus to progress, and we have daily displayed to you, in ourpersons and equipments, the advantages of the higher life. Our wivesand daughters have played the piano, done crewel work, danced, sung andskated, and painted on plaques for your edification and improvement. Wehave trained ourselves, physically, mentally, morally, and aestheticallyto be a thing of beauty in your eyes and a joy for ever. Alas, youhave no vision for the beautiful and intrinsically complete; you can'tappreciate an aristocracy when you see one. We have even flung open ourparks and grounds for your benefit, and let you admire our mansions, and you knocked down the ornaments, and smudged the tapestry and theantimacassars, and trod on the flower-beds, and pulled up the youngtrees, and threw orange-peel into the fountains, and ridiculed thestatuary. Then you asked us for peasant proprietorship. '

'It wasn't me, ' said the Democrat with unusual humility. 'It was theBritish public. '

'And what are you, ' retorted his companion firmly--for he felt that hehad scored a point--'but a representative of the British public? Alas, I could weep for your short-sightedness! When the reins of the ship ofState--no, the helm of the chariot of Government, is in the hands ofa semi-barbarous public, what will it do with it? The old aristocraticballast once thrown overboard, it will drive that chariot upon the rocksof anarchy, it will overturn it upon the shores of revolution. And you, contemptible tool of an infatuated majority, what will you do then?Ah, then, too late you will cry, "Give me back my aristocracy, thearistocracy I so madly flung away!" When you have the Church and Stateflying about your ears, you will wish you had minded what we saidto you. You will long with remorse unspeakable for the old Englishgentleman, the bulwark of the land; but the good old English gentlemanwill be no more. He will have gone to the vaults of his fathers, to thehappy hunting-grounds of the noble lord. '

'You are really very eloquent, ' said the Democrat, with more politenessthan his wont ('I didn't think he had it in him, ' he murmured under hisbreath. ) 'But you exaggerate our intentions. We are only democrats: weare not Nihilists. We desire justice. '

'Ah, that is what you all say!' exclaimed the Aristocrat hastily. 'Ihave heard enough about justice: I wish it had never been invented. Never knew any of your fine-sounding phrases yet that did not end ingunpowder. '

'You mistake, ' said the Democrat severely. 'Our requirements are few andsimple: Universal suffrage, the abolition of the peers, of entail, andof primogeniture, the overthrow of establishments and armaments equallybloated, the right to marry the deceased wife's sister, the confiscationof landed property by the State--'

'Oh lord, yes!' groaned the Aristocrat 'I thought you were coming tothat next. Take our landed property, do--I wish you joy of it! Whatwith all your Communistic legislation and bad harvests, and backinggood things that don't come off--like an ass as I was--by Jove, I feeldisposed to quit the whole business and compete for a Mandarin's Buttonin China. It's the only country for a British Aristocracy to livecomfortably in and be properly appreciated, and you can't comesneaking about with your red-hot Republicanism, for they are all goodConservatives. Who ever heard of The Chinese Revolution?'

They parted hastily, the common consequence of all lengthy argument, and the aristocrat repaired to his club, smoking a cigar to soothe hisruffled feelings, while the democrat also turned on his heel, and wentto address the British public in Hyde Park. Queen Mab, however, hadheard enough of social problems for one day, and she did not followhim. The Owl took her, instead, to Westminster Abbey, and offeredexplanations after the manner of a verger. 

'This is our museum of 'dead celebrities, ' he said. 'Here lie our greatmen--poets, soldiers, artists, and statesmen. When the British publicfeels elevated and sublime it comes here to look at the tombstones, andit says: "These are my great men: they worked for me. I bought them: Ipaid for them!" And it turns away with tears in its eyes. '

'And while they are alive?' asked Mab. 

'That is rather a long subject, ' replied the Owl. 

'In the first place, they set up a great man, like a target, to shoot atand fight over, and find out whether he is really a great man or onlya "lunatic ritualist, " like General Gordon, in the view of Thoughtfulpersons. It takes them some time to decide: sometimes they never dodecide till he has gone to his reward, if even then. It is an admirablequality in him, always, not to mind being shot at. But when the Britishpublic has really made up its mind that a man is a great man, and thathowever low they rate him at market value he is sure to be above theaverage, they sing a psalm of thanksgiving, and they cry, "Where is hiscoffin? Let us drive nails into the coffin of this great man! Let usshow our magnanimity, our respect for the higher life, our reverence forthe lofty soul! Give us the hammer. " Then they begin. It is an imposingceremony, and lasts during the lifetime of the great man, whoeverhe happens to be. He may be a literary great man, a poet, perhaps aLaureate. This type, according to the notions of the British public, requires a great quantity of nails, and every class of society almostbrings them to his coffin. The young lady authors come, many troops ofthem, all conscious of greatness in their own souls, and all havingmade it the dream of their lives to turn their souls inside out for thebenefit of a really great man. Surely, they think, there must be in theheart of him a natural affinity for the details of their inner lives. They give him the details of their inner lives: they also bring withthem hammer and nails. There is nerve in those delicate fingers, energyin those sympathetic souls: the number of nails they contrive to hammerin is astonishing. 

'Then the theologians come, with a doctrinal hammer and many nails, thelineal descendants of the nail that Jael drove into the head of Siserabecause he fought against the Israelites. They have found out that thereis a want of sound sectarian teaching in the works of the poet, and theysay that in the interests of theology they must drive a nail in. Theydrive it: they know how to drive nails, some of the theologians. Goodsound crushing, rending, comfortable nails of doctrine--none of yourairy latitudinarian tin-tacks. Then come the critics: they have beenbrought up to it. They have all manner of nails--nails with broad heads, and narrow heads, and brass heads, and no heads, but all with points. If a critic ever should drive in a nail without a point he would feeleverlastingly disgraced, but he never does: he sharpens them on thepremises. He can always find a place for another nail, till by-and-bythe coffin is quite covered, and then the great man is thankful to restin it. Then the British public sings more psalms. 

But it seems to afford them solid comfort and happiness to find out, orto think they find out, that a great man was really not so great afterall, and that they can look down on him. It is certainly a more piquantsensation to look down on a great man than on an ordinary mortal, andmakes one feel happier. There is a melancholy, sweet satisfaction--Ihave noticed it myself--in pointing out exactly where this or that greatman erred, and where we should not have erred if we had been thisor that great man. There is a calm, blessed sense of the law ofcompensation among humans when they murmur over the grave: "Ah! his wasa mighty soul; everybody says so; but his umbrella was only gingham, andmine has a silver handle. " Or, "Yes, his force of mind was gigantic; butjust here he left the beaten track. If I had been in his place at thatmoment I should have kept it; I always do. " Or, "His morality lookselegant, but it hasn't got any fibre to it. Now my morality is allfibre; you never met with such fibrous morality. What did he do with thefibre out of his? Did he pawn it? did he sell it? did he give it away?We should like to know all about it--is it in his autobiography? Did hewrite an autobiography? If he didn't, why didn't he? We prefer all ourgreat men to write autobiographies. We like to be well up in them, and we think it would throw a great deal of light on the study ofpsychology, and gratify our sense of reverence, to know the exactdetails of the daily life of this great man, and at what hour he dined, and whether he wrote with a quill or a J pen. Whether the quality of thepens he used was or was not intimately connected with the quality of hismoral fibre, and whether his ethical degeneration could or could not bedated from his ceasing to make two fair copies of his manuscripts. Weshould also like to be informed whether his studs were gold or gilt, and, if they were gold, whether it was 18-carat gold, or only 15. Ifthey were gilt, whether he wore them gilt on principle, or because hehadn't money enough to buy a better pair; and if, supposing that it wasbecause he hadn't money enough, _why_ he hadn't, and whether he spentthe money on cigars. Why he was not an anti-tobacconist. Did anyone everinvite him to join the anti-tobacconists? and if they didn't, why didn'tthey? Did he approve of the Blue Ribbon movement? Is it true that heonce got intoxicated, and smashed a blue china teapot? If he did, wasit by way of protest against the demoralising doctrine of Art for Art'ssake? Has anybody written his wife's biography?--if not, why not? Weshould like it at once, and also the biographies of all his secondand third cousins, and of his publishers, and of the conductor of thetramcar he once went into town by. Why did he travel by tram that day, and what had the twopence he paid for the tramcar to do with the flowof the hexameters used by him in translating the Æneid? Let us trace theeffects of both on the growth of individuality in his writings, and findout, if possible, the influence of the twopence as affecting his viewson the opium traffic. " But what a long time I have been talking, ' saidthe Owl, suddenly recollecting himself. 'Automatic action again. Dearme!'

'Yes, you have, ' said Queen Mab, whose thoughts had been wandering. 'Idid not suppose you meant to stop. Is it not time for us to go?'

It was indeed growing late, and the Owl was tired after his longharangue, but though they set out at once on their return journey, theday's experiences were not quite ended. For behold! the mob, returningfrom Hyde Park, with the Democrat at its head, in search of a CabinetMinister, a Lord Mayor, a Government, anything administrative andofficial that they could lay their hands upon, and to whom they couldmake representations. The mob was half-starved; but that, as the Owlwhispered to Queen Mab, was a way it had, and did not amount to much. It was also able-bodied and unemployed but these too were normalcharacteristics, and did not amount to much either. Fortunately, orunfortunately, it met a Cabinet Minister just at the entrance of OxfordStreet, and the Cabinet Minister, who had been walking gaily, andtwirling his cane, instantly slackened his pace, and, with inherent finetact, put on a serious and sympathetic expression. The mob pushed theDemocrat forward, and he confronted the Cabinet Minister. 

'What are you going to do for these people?' he said abruptly; 'they arestarving. '

'No; are they?' said the Cabinet Minister, looking very properlyhorrified, at which the mob cheered. 'I am very sorry indeed to hear it. Let me see if I can find a sixpence. '

He fumbled in all his pockets, and, finally, with some difficulty, produced a threepenny bit. The mob cheered again. 

'I am sorry, ' he said, 'that I haven't a sixpence, but perhaps this willbe of use?'

'That won't do, ' replied the Democrat roughly, as he pocketed the coin. 'Do you suppose that you are going to feed thousands of starving men, women, and children on a threepenny bit?'

'I deeply sympathise, ' said the Cabinet Minister, without any distinctimpression that he was quoting from 'Alice in Wonderland. ' 'In fact, Imay say that I weep for you; but what can I do? Am I not with you? Don'tI hate criticism, and political economy, and Mr. Goschen?'

'You must _act_, returned the Democrat impressively. 'You are in theGovernment; 'and there came from the mob a hoarse, funereal echo, 'Youare in the--qualified--Government!'

'Ah, but I am not in that department, ' said the Minister, seeing away of escape. 'My friends--I may say, indeed, my sufferingfellow-citizens--be reasonable. Don't be vexed with _me_. I am onlya capitalist, a toiler and spinner. Go for dukes and earls, orbetter--exercise patience. "The night, " says the poet, "is always darkestjust before the dawn. " I am not in that department. '

'Hang your departments!' said the Democrat. 'If you are not in thatdepartment, at least you might be expected to know where it is, andto tell it what to do. Who would give a farthing for departments andofficials who can't join hands at a time like this, to help theirstarving countrymen? We shan't stop to quarrel with you how you do it, if you only lift us out of the mire. Here are these men'--he pointedto the mob, and the mob hurrahed--'willing to work, eager to work, perishing for want of food, and not a soul of your benevolentGovernments will lift a finger to set them to work for it. Give thempublic buildings to erect and to be blown up, canals to make, railwaysto cut; assist them to emigrate, if you have nothing for them to do athome, but in Heaven's name be sharp about it!'

'It is really very awkward, ' said the Cabinet Minister. 'You see I amnot in the Railroad Department, nor in the Canal Department, nor in theEmigration Department. I am sure you see that!' he continued hopefully, looking round upon the crowd, who, though they admitted the fact, didnot appear to appreciate its deep and intrinsic force. 'But I am quitewilling at some future opportunity--indeed, I may say I hope at someopportunity comparatively not distant, to consider the advisability ofrepresenting the matter to the heads of certain departments who might beable, in the course of the next but one Septennial Parliament, or' (evenmore sanguinely) 'I might under favourable circumstances even hopeto say, the _next_ Septennial Parliament, to lay the topic before theGovernment. In the meantime, my friends, consider that such means as youhave suggested for alleviating the hardships with which I so profoundlysympathise are not things to be lightly rushed into. You will agree withme doubtless. You will show that fine sense of the propriety of yourlots innate in the breast of every Briton, by agreeing with me thatcanals, for instance, are not things to be lightly rushed into. Emigration, my friends, is not a thing to be lightly rushed into. In themeantime, knowledge, as the good old maxim tells us, never comes amiss, and whatever be the eventual scheme resolved upon by Government forrelieving your necessities, you cannot better employ your leisure thanin preparatory academic study of the arts of building, railway cutting, and canal-making, and in acquainting yourselves with the principles andmethods of emigration, the nature of our different colonial settlements, their situation and productions, during the seven years that mustinevitably elapse--'

He would have proceeded, but a howl, long and loud, drowned hisutterance, and the mob surged forward, driving him back, in a stateof bewildered astonishment, into the premises of a fashionable dealer. Various tokens of regard followed him in the shape of rotten eggs andcabbage leaves, which, as the Owl observed in a thoughtful voice, weredoubtless symbolical. 

Then the mob broke up and went on its different ways. Mab and the Owl, following one of its scattered detachments, met another procession, witha drum and trumpets and other instruments, all working their hardest atone of Sankey and Moody's hymns, which procession drew up straightwaybefore the remnant of the mob, and began to convert it. 

'What is this?' asked Queen Mab. 'Is it British Polynesians going to awar-dance?'

'No, ' replied the Owl. 'It is only the Salvation Army, walking backwardsinto glory. '

'Come away, ' said Mab. 'They are very noisy, these British Polynesians, and the mob makes me miserable. Let us go back. '

'I am ready, ' said the Owl. 'I don't wonder that London has this effecton you at first. You are not sufficiently automatic, and a non-automaticmind has always much to contend with. '

CHAPTER VII. -- MACHINERY AND THE SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT. 

 'Now to the eye of Faith displayed, The Prototype is seen, In every office, every trade, I mark, in human garb arrayed, The conquering Machine!

 By careful evolution planned, With many a gliding wheel, To warn, to comfort, to command, Or fly, or drive a four-in-hand, Or dance a Highland Reel!

 When, urged no more by Passions gale, Or impulse unforeseen, Humanity shall faint and fail, Upon its ruins will prevail The conquering Machine!'

Perhaps the exhibition of machinery-struck Queen Mab with more horrorthan any other novelty in this country. The Owl declared that she oughtto develop a stronger automatic principle, and he therefore took herto an exhibition full of appliances for making the world over again, if ever, as North-country folk say, it 'happened an accident' All thedifferent industries of the higher life were represented, and the scenewas calculated to drive a non-automatic mind, as the Owl called QueenMab's, entirely out of itself in the course of three-quarters of anhour. 

There was machinery, worked by electricity, for beating gold to thatdegree of fineness that it could not be seen except through a powerfulmicroscope, and there was the powerful microscope for seeing it through, also worked by electricity. 

'Why do they want it so fine?' asked Mab. 

'In order, ' said the Owl, 'that they may be able to take a microscopeto it, and so increase the demand for microscopes. The trades play intoeach other's hands. Look at these watches making themselves. '

He pointed to an arrangement of ropes and wheels and pulleys andelectricity, directing the movements of a few human assistants withadmirable dexterity and precision. 

'You don't have anything like that in Polynesia!' said the Owl withpardonable pride. 

'No, I should think not, ' said Queen Mab. 'Why, we haven't any watchesat all there. We look at the sun. '

'Ah yes, ' returned the Owl. 'But the sun is rather unreliable, afterall. He has the Ecliptic to go round, and the whole of the Solar Systemto attend to, and one must make allowances for him. But, for purposesof strict chronology, watches are better, especially these watches! Theywind themselves up punctually every night, and if their owners break themainsprings of them, they pack themselves up to go by Parcels Post backto the Company, and then they direct the parcel--or so I hear. Oh! theyare very intelligent watches!'

'Is that true? 'inquired Mab doubtfully. 

'I believe so, ' said the Owl. 

There seemed to Queen Mab something rather too preternatural about this, though she could well believe it, as she looked at the wonderful mannerin which the watches turned themselves out. It frightened her, and theyproceeded farther on, and came to much artillery, carefully constructedby the higher civilisation for the purpose of turning the lowercivilisation, or the non-civilisation, or the alien civilisation, fromthe error of its ways. 

'These, ' said the Owl, pointing at random to a collection of elegantlypolished torpedoes, cannons of superior excellence, gunpowder andgun-cotton of all descriptions and colours, arranged artistically incases, to resemble sugar-candy and other confectionery, 'are the weaponsof our philanthropy, the agents by which we disseminate truth, charity, and freedom, among tribes and races as yet imperfectly supplied withcardinal virtues and general ideas. They cost a great deal, but we wouldsacrifice anything for such a purpose. There is nothing mean about theBritish public. "What are a few bales of gun-cotton, ' it cries--" a fewtons of paltry bullets, in comparison with the march of civilisation andhumanity and open markets? We do but give them of our best, our finestBessemer steel, our latest thing in torpedo-boats--nothing is too goodfor them. What are we, if not magnanimous?' says the British public. I always like that about it--it never grudges a few millions for warexpenditure in the cause of philanthropy! Considering how very sharplyit looks after its £ s. D. In other directions, this liberality isespecially touching and gratifying. '

But Queen Mab preferred to hurry past these dangerous-looking engines ofAltruism, and they continued their survey. They came next to a companyof umbrellas who were also barometers, and found out when it was goingto rain in time for their masters to take them out. This, Mab said, wasabsurd, and, in fact, she was heartily tired of the whole thing beforethe Owl had explained to her half-a-dozen ingenious structures. She saidthat inanimate objects had no business to be so clever, and that, if themechanicians did not take care, they would shortly invent machines thatwould conspire together to assassinate them, and then share the profits. 

'Let us go away, ' she exclaimed finally, 'before we turn into machinesourselves! Everything is going round and round, and I am afraid ofhaving to begin to go round and round too. '

'Ah, I knew this would be the place for cultivating the automaticprinciple in you, ' said the Owl triumphantly. 'We will come again. '

'No, thank you, ' said Mab, energetically spreading her wings, and, inher preoccupation, taking the wrong road and darting into the greatluncheon-room, whither the Owl followed her. The tables were crowdedwith people, and numbers of other people who had not yet lunched, werepacing up and down, looking anxiously for vacant places which were notthere. The invisible spectators recognised the British manufacturer theyhad seen in Richmond Park. He was seated at a table; he had been sittingthere since the disappearance of his last glass of claret, half an hourby the great clock, and for the whole of that half-hour several persons, standing very near his chair, had been fixing hungry eyes upon him, and expecting him to get up. Every time his boots creaked they movedperceptibly nearer, and made swift mental calculations of the chanceseach would have to reach the chair; but the worthy manufacturer stillsat on, stolid and complacent, with a sense of comfort the keener bycontrast. 

Queen Mab and the Owl found him uncongenial, and flew away again. 

'That is just like him, ' said the Owl, when they had reached the outsideof the building at last, and were perched on the roof, enjoying thefresh air. 'He _will_ get all he can for his money. In him you may see atypical and beautiful example of the Survival of the Fittest. Heworked his way, by means of native moral superiority and pure chocolatecomposed of mortar and molasses tinted with sepia, right from thegallery into one of the very best reserved seats, and now has littlebooks written on himself, as exemplifying the reward of virtue, andexhorts everybody to go in and do likewise. The pamphlets conclude:

'"If your vocation furnishes only the trivial round and the common task;if it does not fall to your lot to invent a new pure chocolate, you canat least buy Mr. Tubbs's pure chocolate, and reverence the benefactorsof humanity. "

'He sends copies to all the dukes, and earls, and archbishops, and theresult is an immense sale of the pure chocolate. He has never missed achance of advertising it; he takes boxes to the meetings of the ChurchMissionary Society for propagation among the heathen, and so has managedto get large profits from the Zunis, and the Thlinkeets, and the Mikado, and the Shah. He nearly got into difficulty with the Low Church partyonce by writing privately to the Pope to solicit orders--not holyorders; orders for pure chocolate, I mean. I hope he won't carry it toofar. His wife's uncle, who was a wholesale draper, seized one goldenopportunity too many, and never recovered from the effects. '

'How was that?' asked Mab. 

'It was an incident that took place in the Strand one day, ' said theOwl with a modest air, 'of which I learned the particulars from two Citysparrows. It struck my fancy, and I wrote a few stanzas upon it. Thekingfisher, in fact, did me the honour to say that I had wedded thecircumstance to immortal verse; but that was his partiality. I will, however, repeat the little poem to you. ' And with becoming diffidencethe Owl recited:

 'The Seraph and the Snob. 

 It was a draper eminent, A merchant of the land, On lofty calculations bent, Who raised his eyes, on cent, per cent. 

 From pondering, in the Strand. He saw a Seraph standing there, With aspect bright and sainted, Ethereal robe of fabric fair, And wings that might have been the pair Sir Noel Paton painted. 

 A real Seraph met his gaze-- There was no doubt of that-- Irradiate with celestial rays. Our merchant viewed him with amaze, And then he touched his hat. 

 I own, before he raised his hand, A moment he reflected, Because in this degenerate land, To meet a Seraph in the Strand Was somewhat unexpected. 

 Yet there one stood, as wrapt in thought, Amid the City's din, No other eye the vision caught, Not even a stray policeman sought To run that Seraph in. 

 But on the merchant curious eyes Men turned, and mocking finger, For well they knew his mien and guise, _He_ was not wont, in moonstruck wise, About the Strand to linger. 

 Mute stood the draper for a space, The mystery to probe, Alas! in that his hour of grace, His eyes forsook the Seraph's face, And rested on his robe. 

 And wildly did he seek in vain To guess the strange material, And golden fancies filled his brain, And hopes of unimagined gain Woke at the sight ethereal. 

 Then, suffered not by fate austere The impulse to discard, He never paused to idly veer About the bush; but calm and clear He said: 'How much a yard?'

 A bright and tremulous lustre shone Through the dull, dingy Strand, From parting wings seraphic thrown; And then, mute, motionless, alone, Men saw the merchant stand. 

 *****

 In town to-day his memory's cold, No more his name on 'Change is, Idle his mart, his wares are sold, And men forget his fame of old, Who now in Earlswood ranges. 

 Yet evermore, with toil and care He ponders on devices For stuffs superlatively rare, Celestial fabrics past compare, At reasonable prices. 

 To him the padded wall and dead With gorgeous colour gleams, And huge advertisements are spread, And lurid placards, orange, red, Drive through his waking dreams. '

'Thank you, ' said Queen Mab, 'that is very interesting; but I can'thelp being sorry for the merchant. For, after all, you know, it was hisnature to. Is it not time, now, for us to go back?'

CHAPTER VIII. -- THE BEAUTIFUL. 

 'Tweet!' cried the sparrows, 'it is nothing! It only looks like something. Tweet! that is the beautiful. Can you make anything of it? I can't?' Hans Andersen. 

'How exceedingly successful, ' observed Queen Mab one day, 'the PermanentScarecrows have been!'

'The Permanent Scarecrows?' said the Owl. 

The winged and gifted pair had been on another visit to London, andMab had found rows on rows of stucco houses, where she had left greenfields, running brooks, and hedges white with may, on the northern sideof the Strand. 

'Yes 'said Mab 'you hardly ever see a crow now, where, in my time, thefarmers were so much plagued by the furtive bird. But, as the crowshave been thoroughly frightened off, and as there are now no crops toprotect, I do think they might remove the permanent scarecrows. '

'Your Majesty's meaning, ' said the Owl, 'is beginning to dawn on me. True, in your time there were no statues in London, and the mistakeinto which you have fallen is natural. You went away before the greatdevelopment of British Art, and British Sculpture, and British worshipof Beauty. The monuments you notice are expressive of our love ofloveliness, our devotion to all that is fair. These objects of which youcomplain are not meant to alarm predatory fowls (though well calculatedfor that purpose) but to commemorate heroes, often themselves more orless predatory. '

'Do you mean to tell me?' asked Mab, 'that that big burly scarecrow, about to mend a gigantic quill with a blunt sword, was a hero?'

'He was indeed, ' said the Owl, 'though I admit that you would never haveguessed it from his effigy. '

'And that other scarecrow, all claws and beak, who blocks up the narrowstreet where the Dragon worshippers throng? Was _he_ a hero?'

'He is believed by some to be the Dragon himself, ' said the Owl; 'but noone knows for certain, not even the sculptor. '

'And the Barber's Block with the stuffed dog, looking into the Park?'

'He was a poet, ' said the Owl, 'and expressed so much contempt for menthat they retorted by that ridiculous caricature. Would you believe it, English sculptors actually quarrelled among themselves as to who madethat singular and, for its original purpose, most successful scarecrow!'

'I don't wonder, ' remarked the Queen, 'that birds of taste are rare inthe Metropolis, and that, on the Embankment especially, a rook would beregarded as a kind of prodigy. Nowhere has the manufacture of permanentscarecrows been conducted with more ingenious success. But tell me, myaccomplished fowl, have Britons any other arts? Long ago the men used topaint themselves blue, but, as far as I have remarked, the women arenow alone in staining their cheeks with a curious purplish dye and theirlocks with ginger colour. '

'Among the Arts, ' said the Owl, 'the modern English chiefly excel inpainting. To-morrow, by the way, the shrine of Loveliness begins to openits gates. The successful worshippers, are admitted to varnish theirofferings to Beauty, while the unsuccessful are sent away in disgrace, with their sacrifices. Suppose we go and examine this curious scene. '

'In Polynesia, ' replied Mab, 'no well-meant offering is rejected by thegods. '

'The Polynesian gods, ' answered the Owl, 'are too indiscriminate. '

On the next morning any one whose eyes were purged with euphrasy and ruemight have observed an owl and a fairy queen fluttering in the smoky airabove Burlington House. Here a mixed multitude of men and women, youngand old, were thronging about the gates, some laughing, some lamenting. A few entered with proud and happy steps, bearing quantities of varnishto the goddess; others sneaked away with pictures under their arms, or hastily concealed the gifts rejected at the shrine of Beauty in thehospitable shelter of four-wheeled cabs. 

'Let us enter, ' said the Owl, 'and behold how wisely the Forty Priestsof Beauty (or the Forty Thieves, as their enemies call them) and theThirty Acolytes have arranged the gifts of the faithful. 

Lightly the unseen pair fluttered past the servants of Beauty, noblyattired in gold and scarlet. They found themselves in a series ofstately halls, so covered with pictures in all the hues of the anilinerainbow, that Queen Mab winked, and suffered from an immortal headache. 

'How curious it is, ' said Queen Mab, 'that of all the many thousandofferings only a very few, namely, those hung at a certain height fromthe floor, are really visible to any one who is neither a fairy nor abird. '

'The pieces which you observe, ' remarked the Owl, 'are almost in everycase the work of the Forty Priests of Beauty, of the Thirty Acolytes, and of their cousins, their sisters, and their aunts. Those otherattempts, almost invisible, as you say, to anyone but a bird or a fairy, have been produced by other worshippers not yet admitted to the HolyBand. '

'Then, ' asked the Queen, 'are the Forty Priests by far the most expertin devising objects truly beautiful, and really worthy of the Goddess ofBeauty?'

'On that subject, ' said the Owl, 'your Majesty will be able to form anopinion after you have examined the sacrifices at the shrine. '

Swiftly as Art Critics the winged spectators flew, invisible, round thegalleries, and finally paused, breathless, on the gigantic group of St. George and the Dragon, then in the Sculpture Room. 

'Well, what do you think?' asked the Owl. 

'The Forty Priests, ' replied Queen Mab, 'are, with few exceptions, menwho seem to have been blinded, perhaps by the Beatific Vision of Beauty. If the Beatific Vision of Beauty has not blinded them, why are they andtheir friends so hopelessly absurd? Why do they have all the best of theshrine to themselves, while the young worshippers are consigned to holesand corners, or turned out altogether? Who makes the Forty the Forty?Does the goddess choose her own Ministers?'

'By no means, ' said the Owl, 'they choose themselves. Who else, in thename of Beauty, would choose them? But you must not think that they areall blind or stupid; there are some very brilliant exceptions, ' and hepointed triumphantly to the offerings of the High Priest and of five orsix other members of the Fraternity. 

'This is all very well, and I am delighted to see it, ' said QueenMab, 'but tell me how the choosing of the Forty and of the Acolytes isarranged. 'When one of the Forty dies, ' replied the Owl, 'which happensonly at very long intervals, for they belong to the race of Struldbrugs, several worshippers who have become bald, old, nearly sightless, withother worshippers' still young and strong, are paraded before theThirty-nine. And they generally choose the old men, or, if not, theyoung men who come from a strange land in the North, where rain fallsalways when it is not snowing, and whither no native ever returns. Ifsuch a man lives in a fine house, and has a cunning cook, then (eventhough he can paint) he may be admitted among the Forty, or among theThirty who attain not to the Forty. After that he can take his ease;however ugly his offerings to Beauty, they are presented to the public. '

'Well, ' said Queen Mab, 'my curiosity is satisfied, and I no longerwonder at the permanent scarecrows. But one thing still puzzles me. Whatbecomes of the offerings of the Forty after the temple closes?'

'They disappear by means of a very clever invention, ' said the Owl. 'Long ago a famous priest, named Chantrey, perceived that the countrywould be overrun with the offerings to which you allude. He thereforebequeathed a sum of money, called the Chantrey bequest, to enable theForty to purchase each other's pictures. '

'But what do they do with them after they have bought them?' persistedMab, who had a very inquiring mind. 

'Oh, goodness knows; don't ask _me_, ' said the Owl crossly; 'nobody everinquires after them again!'

CHAPTER IX. -- IN WHICH THE NIHILIST, THE DEMOCRAT, AND THE PROFESSOROFFER A SUGGESTION TO THE BISHOP. 

 'Were it not better not to be!' Tennyson: The Two Voices. 

 'Si tu veux', je te tuerais ici tout franc, en sorte que tu rien sentiras rien, et m'en croy, car j'en ay bien tué d'autres qui s'en sont bien trouvez' Pantagruel, ii. Xiv. 

'Look there!' said the Owl one day. 'There is a bishop, one of thehigher priests of St. George. '

He was a beautiful bishop, in his mitre, canonicals, and crozier, allcomplete--so the Owl said. It strikes one as a novelty for bishops towear their rochettes and mitres when they go out walking in RichmondPark; but one is forced to believe the Owl, he has such a truthfulway with him, like George Washington. By the way, what scope GeorgeWashington had for telling lies, if he had wished it, after thatincident of the cherry-tree, which gave everyone such a high opinion ofhis veracity!

The Bishop advanced slowly into full view, and then drew up beforea tree. He did not lean against the tree, for fear of spoiling hissplendours, but he drew up before it, and began to ponder, with amild, benevolent expression on his fine features. At the same time, twohundred yards away, Queen Mab caught sight of the Democrat, walking veryfast, a little out of breath, and looking for the Bishop. He wanted toexplain to him the principles of Church and State, and to talk thingsover in a friendly way. The Democrat had great faith in talking thingsover, spite of his failure to convince the Aristocrat; he never reallydoubted that if he only harangued against obstacles long enough theywould ultimately disappear. The Bishop, for instance, would willinglyrush into nonentity, if once he could be brought to look at his duty inthat light, and the Democrat was eager to begin to put it before him inthat light immediately. But while he was still looking earnestly forhis expected proselyte, someone else advanced with a similar purpose--atall, gentlemanly individual, with a pleasing exterior, spotless linencuffs, and a black bag. The Owl uttered a cry of horror. 

'Come away!' he exclaimed. 'It is a Nihilist, a dynamiter!'

But Queen Mab held her ground, or rather her branch. She was acourageous fairy, and though she turned a shade paler she spokeresolutely:

'No!' she said. 'I mean to stay and see what he does with it _You_ maygo. '

But the Owl was either too chivalrous to desert her, or he was paralysedwith terror. 

'Dynamite strikes downwards, ' the fairy heard him murmur with chatteringbeak, and that was all he could say. Meanwhile the Nihilist went up tothe Bishop. 

'Excuse me!' he murmured politely, and knelt down. The Bishop stretchedout his hands absently, in an attitude of blessing; but the Nihilistdid not look up. He took an American cloth parcel from the black bag andlaid it at the Bishop's feet. Then, gradually withdrawing, he began tolay the train. 

'He is going to blow him up!' whispered Mab, shuddering. But theBishop, absorbed in rapt contemplation, heard and saw nothing, tillthe Democrat, breaking rudely through some bushes and into hisreverie, roused him effectually. The Democrat was not a person of whoseneighbourhood one could remain unconscious. 

'Ah!' he exclaimed, while the Bishop looked upon him with an air of milddisapprobation. 'I have found you at last! I was anxious to discuss withyou--but what is this?'

For the more observant Democrat had caught sight of the cloth parcel. 

'What is this?' he repeated suspiciously. 

'I really don't know, ' said the Bishop mildly, putting on his spectaclesand gazing down. 'I am a little shortsighted, you know. It is the sizeof the quarto edition of--'

'There!' interrupted the Democrat, who had caught a glimpse of theNihilist's shadowy figure. He darted after it, while the Bishop, alittle perturbed, moved slowly in the same direction. 

'Don't move, ' said the Nihilist, raising an abstracted face. 'I willonly be a moment. Just step back there, will you?' and he pointedtowards the parcel with one hand, while the other still scattered thetrain. 

'What are you doing?' cried the Democrat, shaking him. 

'Stop that!' said the Nihilist 'You had better not lay hands on _me_, oryou mayn't like it. It is really inconsiderate, ' he continued, appealingto the Bishop in an injured voice. 'I am only going to blow you up, and you won't be quiet half a minute together. How _can_ I blow you upproperly, if you will keep walking about?'

'You are going to blow _me_ up!' said the Bishop, awaking to thesituation, and becoming as indignant as his gentle nature would allowhim to be. 'Miserable man! What will you want to blow up next? I utterlydiscountenance it. Take your dynamite to the haunts of iniquity andatheism, if you will. Rather blow up Renan, and Dissenters, and the Rev. Mr. Cattell; but as for _me_, this is really carrying it too far!'

'Waal, ' said the Nihilist, rising with a surprised stare, and in theastonishment of the moment betraying his nationality, 'I guess thingsair come to a pretty pass when a Bishop of the Church of Englandrefooses to be blown up in the interests of hoomanity!'

He took up the American cloth parcel as he spoke and walked despondentlyaway, musing over the lack of public spirit displayed by establishedorders in general and prelates in particular. 

'I would cheerfully consent to be blown up any day, ' he murmuredpensively, 'in the interests of hoomanity; but it is not for theinterests of hoomanity--'

'Why did you not arrest him?' said the Bishop reproachfully, when he wasout of sight. 

'He is the natural product of the present depraved state of Societyand of the Legislature, ' replied the Democrat, shaking his head, 'andtherefore to be pitied rather than condemned. He should be accepted asa warning, a merciful token sent to all thrones, principalities andpowers, reminding them of the error of their ways and of their latterend. And besides, ' he continued unwillingly, 'he has a whole magazineof explosives on his person. If I had not been carried away by myindignation just now I should never have taken him by the collar. Idid remonstrate with him once, on the strength of his political bias. Isaid, "Look at us, why can't you profit by our example? We don't wishto blow up, but gently to 'disintegrate. We are mild, but firm. Wenever express a wish for revolution, but for reform. We are as active asanyone in bringing about the Millennium, but we don't desire to beshot into it head foremost, like a projectile from one of your infernalmachines. Dynamite, that last infirmity of noble minds, should only beresorted to when all other modes of conciliation have failed. " And whatdo you think he replied? He smiled affably and offered me a box. "Thankyou!" he said, "Take a torpedo?"'

'Dear me!' said the Bishop; 'he is really a terrible character. I havehere some of his advertisements, sent to me the other day. Actuallysent by post, to me, a Prelate of the Church of England. I saved them, intending to deliver a discourse upon the subject. '

He took a handful of papers from his pocket-book, and the Democratperused them, while Queen Mab, invisible, looked over his shoulder. 

'Home Comfort! Hints to Architects and Builders. 

'In the construction of tenements, it is absolutely necessary, for thesafety and convenience of the inmates, to place in the recess at theback of each fireplace a couple of Donovan's Patent Dynamite FireBricks, warranted. The advantages of this novel and most ingeniouscontrivance will be fully appreciated when, for the first time, thefamily circle gathers round the cheerful blaze. '

 'To Clergymen. 

 'For a pure religious light, suitable to the Liturgy of the Church of England, try Donovan's Wax Tapers for Church Illumination. Two of these, placed in the sconces, will give more light than twenty ordinary candles, and will also impart vigour and fervency of tone to the whole of the proceedings. Donovan and Co. Are so confident of the superiority of their manufactures that they are willing to refund costs, on receiving the written attestation of the Bishop of the diocese that the article has proved unsuitable. Try them; you can have no idea of the effects. '

 'Directors of Railway Companies. 

 'Take care to have carriages illuminated with Donovan's Patent Safety Lamps. These exert a bracing and salutary influence, not only on the atmosphere and the spirits of the passengers, but on the tunnel walls themselves, which are invariably found, after the passage through them of a train lighted by Donovan's Patent Safety Lamps, completely prostrate with astonishment at the unparalleled effects of the same, to the immense convenience of traffic and judicious prevention of accidents. '

There were several more advertisements, similar in tone and ofattractive appearance, which the Democrat perused with interest. 

'What could possess the fellow to send all these to _you?_' he exclaimedwhen he had finished. 'I always said he pushed the thing to an extreme. He has got dynamite on the brain: he will go off himself some day if hedoesn't take care, like a new infernal machine. '

'I wish he would!' said the Bishop hastily; and then correcting himself, 'I was about to say, "Whatever is, is best. "'

'Oh, stow that!' exclaimed the Democrat. 'I mean, ' he addedapologetically, on observing the Bishop's startled glance, 'that, ofcourse, that sounds very well, and it is a pretty thing to say, buteverybody knows it isn't true. I will undertake to prove to you, ifyou will allow me'--here the Bishop's face gathered a shade ofmelancholy--'that, in fact, there never was a more outrageous falsehoodon the earth. As for the Nihilist, naturally we should be thankfulto get rid of him, either by explosion or otherwise; but he is such adangerous fellow to tackle. The fact is, one hardly dare shake handswith him, for fear of being blown into the middle of next week, and thenone couldn't toil for the benefit of humanity. '

'Act, act in the living Present, ' murmured the Bishop. 

'Just so, ' said his companion approvingly. 'And you can't act in theliving Present when you are in the middle of next week. '

'And yet, you know, ' said the Bishop, with a glimpse before him ofsome possible advantage in the argument, 'I have often fancied that youyourself--'

He paused judiciously. 

'Oh no!' returned the Democrat promptly, 'we wouldn't do it on anyaccount. I assure you that our motives are quite unimpeachable. '

'Oh!' said the Bishop. 'And about the House of Lords, for example?Being a Spiritual Peer oneself, you see, one naturally takes aninterest--limited. '

'Well, as for that, ' said the Democrat, 'it would really be such anexcellent thing for you in all respects to be abolished, that you wouldnever make any objection, would you now? We have your welfare so deeplyat heart, and long study of your characteristics has convinced us thata course of judicious abolition would be your salvation, temporal, spiritual--and eternal. '

'I say!' exclaimed the Bishop, 'isn't _that_ putting it rather strong?To a Bishop, you know. '

'Ah, ' said his companion encouragingly, 'all that feeling will passaway. The full beauty of true Democracy is not, I admit, at firstwholly apparent to the Conservative mind; but once afford the requisiteculture, and it unfolds new attractions every day. Believe me, we areacting in this matter solely, or almost solely, with a view to yourultimate benefit. We are not acting for ourselves--ourselves is asecondary consideration. But your true fife, as Goethe so beautifullysays, probably with an intentional reference to bishops and noblelords, must begin with renunciation of yourself. Till you have once beenabolished you can never know how nice it is. 

"The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower, "' headded, quoting the words of the hymn-book, with the firm impression thatthey were from some Secularist publication. 

'And is it necessary?' said the Bishop somewhat helplessly. 

'Absolutely necessary, ' replied the Democrat. 

'I don't know about that, ' said a voice behind them, and Queen Mabstarted, seeing the Professor. 'But depend upon it, the fittest willsurvive. I think, myself, that it is quite time you were gone; but sometypes die out very slowly, especially the lower types; and you may besaid, as regards freedom of intellect and the march of Science, to be alow type--in fact, a relic of barbarism. There can be no doubt that, in the economy of Nature, bishops are an unnecessary organ, merelytransmitted by inheritance in the national organism, and that inthe course of time they will become atrophied and degenerate outof existence. When that time comes you must be content to pass intooblivion. Study Palæontology. ' Now he pronounced it Paleyon-tology, not having had a classical education. 'Think of the pterodactyles, whopassed away before the end of the Mesozoic ages, and never have appearedagain. What, in the eternal nature of things, are bishops more thanpterodactyles?'

'I wonder, ' interrupted the Bishop severely, 'that you dare to speakof your pernicious teachings under the name of Paleyontology, as if theFirst Principles of that revered divine, whose loss we all deplore, wereever anything like that!'

The Professor only glared, and was going on, but the Democrat stoppedhim, by remarking, in a loud and exasperatingly complacent voice:

'You are quite correct. Only upon the wreck of the old order ofexistence can arise the New Democracy. '

'Can you never stop talking about yourself?' snapped the Professortestily. 'One would think, to hear you, that Democracy was the goal ofeverything. '

'So it is, ' said the Democrat. 

'Not a bit of it. You and your democracies are only a fleeting phase, aninfinitesimal fraction of the aeons to be represented, perhaps, in somegeological record of the future, by a mere insignificant conglomerateof dust and bones, and ballot-boxes, and letters in the _Spectator_ andother articles characteristic of this especial period. What a dream ofScience that, interstellary communication established, some beingof knowledge and capacities as infinitely excelling our own as ourfaculties excel those of the lowly monad, wandering on this terrestrialglobe, and culling from the imperfect archives of these bygone years acorkscrew, an opera-glass, or, perchance, a pot of long since petrifiedmarmalade, preserved intact by some protecting incrustation ofstalagmite from the ravages of time, may dart a penetrating gleam ofintelligence through the dark abysses of innumerable ages, and exclaim:"This clay, upon which I gaze, was of the human period. This coin, thismeerschaum, this china shepherdess, this prayer-book with gilt edges, this _Sporting Times_, were the inseparable companions of a fossilspecies of Englishmen who once colonised this globe, and minute tracesof whom have been found in its most widely separated regions. Alas thatthe action of marine and subaerial denuding agents has deprived us of anopportunity for closer examination of the habits and idiosyncrasiesof this interesting fossil. Into such small compass are compressedthe pride and wealth of nations and of centuries. O genus humanum! Otempora! O mores!" Thus will he muse. No democrat! no stump oratorwill be that Being of the Future, nor anything of human mould. One'simagination may well revel in the thought that Evolution, mighty toconceive and to perform, lias not yet completed her work. Whatare vertebrates? Even these are transient. But four classes ofvertebrates--only four!' shouted the Professor in his enthusiasm, whollyforgetting the Democrat, and the Bishop, who was gazing at him witha look of blank horror on his venerable countenance. 'Why, it ispreposterous, it is inconceivable that we should stop at four!--fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals! Where is the fifth! Cannot NaturalSelection, Struggle for Existence, Variability and Survival of theFittest, between them, furnish a fifth class of vertebrates? I demand itin the name of Science and of Evolution. We have been human long enough. There we are, ever since the Age of Stone, pinned down to one particulartribe of mammals. Ah, when shall we begin to move on again? Is not thisa hope beyond the niggardly aspirations of a purblind democrat?'

'What will the future reality be? I care not; but progress demands a newand conquering organism. For my part, I see no reason why we should notimmediately leave the vertebrates. That would be something like a NewDeparture. '

Here the professor stopped suddenly, becoming aware of the eyes ofthe Democrat, which were fixed on him with a mixture of contempt andcuriosity. 

'I don't understand all that, ' he said in an exasperating tone. 'It isvery elevating, I daresay, but what I want is Universal Suffrage. Thereis something tangible for you. When we get that, there will be time tothink about the future, and indeed, we shall have it in our own hands, and can furnish any kind we like, by Ballot. Ballot is better thanNatural Selection. Natural Selection is all very well; but it does notknow what we want. We do. '

'Science may be allowed her dreams as well as Theology, ' said theProfessor rather shamefacedly. 

'But you can't bring about a new sub-kingdom, or the kingdom of heaveneither, by Act of Parliament. '

'Why not?' returned the Democrat confidently. 'It is only to get amajority; and there you are, you know!'

'My brethren, ' said the Bishop, inspired thereto, as the Owl observed, by reflex action, 'Perfection is not of this world!'

'It will be though, ' replied the Democrat cheerfully, ' before we havedone with it. Bless you, Perfection will be upon you before you havetime to turn round! That is the beauty of the New Democracy. You havemerely to be abolished, and then we get a majority, and then, you know, there we are!'

'What will you do with the minority?' said the Professor grumpily. 'Howabout Proportional Representation?'

'Oh, the minority?' said the Democrat. 'Well, it will be all right--youwill see how right it will be if you give us a majority. We haveeverybody's interests at heart--deeply at heart!' he added hopefully. 'We first pass a Bill for the manufacture (National Monopoly) of allthe cardinal virtues at reduced prices--may be ordered direct from theCompany, carriage paid; and then a Bill for the repression of all theCardinal Crimes, which the Company is also willing to buy up at marketvalue, for exportation--and then, you see, there we are!'

'Where are you?' said the Professor sharply. 

'Where?' replied the Democrat, looking puzzled for a moment, but soonrecovering himself triumphantly. 'Where? oh, we are there, you know. _There_ we are!'

'Humph!' ejaculated the Professor, turning on his heel. The Bishopturned away also, saying that he had an engagement, and the Democratfollowed him, talking very fast and bringing forward arguments. Whenthey reached the gate there was a sad, perplexed look upon the Bishop'sface, and finally shaking off his companion by an effort of the will, heentered the nearest churchyard and began to meditate upon mortality. TheDemocrat, observing in an acrid voice that he had something better todo with mortality than to meditate upon it, turned away reluctantlyfrom the gate, and began to compose a popular ode, which had tremendoussuccess, and of which the rhymes were dubious but the sentimentsunimpeachable. Meanwhile, Queen Mab and the Owl, who had followedun-perceived, perched upon the tower of the church, and surveyed thelandscape and the Bishop, who, a venerable appropriate figure in hisvestments, had turned naturally to the east, and was standing by amarble cross. 

'What a pleasant place!' said Mab. 'The dead must rest quietly here. '

'I am not sure that they don't keep up class distinctions, ' said the Owlrather misanthropically. 'They would if they could. But, on the whole, I prefer to think that this place is the goal of the Democrat, whereEquality reigns indeed. If so, it will be consoling to him, for I amafraid he will never get equality in life. Death, at present, has themonopoly. Mr. Mallock thinks that Social Equality, if it ever came topass, would be ruinous to the welfare of the nation; but happily we arein no immediate danger of it. Inequality, he says, is the condition ofProgress, and if it is only Inequality that is wanted, Progress oughtto be making rapid strides. Oh yes, we have Social Inequality enoughto carry us on at the rate of a mile a minute. It would be interesting, would it not, to know in what direction we are progressing--though, ofcourse, the Progress is the chief thing--from good to better or from badto worse?'

'Very interesting, ' said Queen Mab. 'I mean to think that we areprogressing from good to better. But do you know that you are a verydismal bird? Are things really as bad as you say they are?'

'Perhaps I _am_ cynical, ' replied the Owl. 'The kingfisher says so. Thekingfisher is an optimist, and he told me I thought it was clever to becynical; but that was when we had a few words one day. It is from livingin a belfry, doubtless, that I have contracted a habit of looking atthings on the dark side; but when one has made allowance for the belfry, the world is not so bad after all. Of course animals can't be expectedto know what it means; they are not social philosophers, and men say somany different things. Some think the universe is under a dual control, and some that it is altogether a blunder--a clock running down andthe key lost I don't know about that, I am only a bird; but if it is afailure, it is a glorious failure. Sometimes, indeed, the theologianscall life a howling wilderness; but that is in comparison with the nextworld. For they are immortal. '

'I am immortal too, ' said Queen Mab proudly. 

'So you are, ' returned the Owl. 'I was forgetting. I'm not, ' he addedrather doubtfully. 'But I hope you will enjoy it. '

'It is my intention, ' said Queen Mab. 

The Bishop, from whose face the look of perplexity had departed, leavingonly his old serene, benevolent expression, turned as the bell chimedout the hour, and walked slowly towards the gate. The east was growinggrey towards sunset, the east that lent the light wherein he lived, forhe was a man of a gentle heart. Far off, in the town, a million lampswere beginning to burn. Gas lamps, and electric, and matches that struckonly on the box, and not always on that. But the face of the Bishopshone with another radiance, and a lustre not of this world. 

CHAPTER X. -- THE SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF THE NIHILIST. 

 'Cucullus nonfacit monachum. '

Queen Mab and the Owl were returning, rather tired, from an excursion, when a procession of the Salvation Army came across them, with drums andbanners, and the General at its head, and, --they could hardly believetheir eyes, --the Nihilist walking by the side of the General and weepingabundantly. The Salvation Army had brought him to a conviction of hissins, and he was wringing his hands--at least one of them; the other, as if automatically, still carried the black bag. The General, on thecontrary, was highly delighted. It was not every day that he converteda Nihilist, and the thought occurred, small blame to him, that the wholehistory of the incident would sound remarkably well in the 'War Cry. ' Soit would have done, but for that unfortunate bag. 

'You renounce the devil, ' said the General confidently, 'and all hisways?'

'I renounce him, ' said the Nihilist, still clasping the black bagfervently, in a glow of pious enthusiasm, as if it were a prayer-book. 

'Then you are all right, ' said the General in an encouraging tone. 'Throw away the black bag, my friend, and shout Hallelujah! Do you feelyour sins forgiven?'

'I do! I do!' exclaimed the Nihilist. 'But I daren't throw it away:it would make such a noise in the street. I'll tie it on to the nextballoon that comes by empty. They'll assassinate me; but I don't care: Ihave peace in my heart!'

'That's the right ring, ' said the General, not without conquering afeeling of repugnance towards the vicinity of the bag. 'Faith withoutworks, you know. Well, my brother, we must be back to head-quarters. You'll meet us at the Hall to-night--seven sharp. '

'I will, ' cried the Nihilist enthusiastically. 'I must go to one of yourblessed gatherings before my enemies are on my track. Ah, it's true--theworld is vanity. Dynamite is vanity. Torpedoes, nitro-glycerine--they'redust and ashes, broken cisterns! I renounce them all. '

They had reached an important metropolitan railway station, and theGeneral's party, entering, began to take tickets for their returnjourney. Then, for the first time, the Nihilist noticed that the Generalalso carried a black bag, in shape and size similar to his own, which heplaced on the floor of the booking-office as he went to take his ticket. Queen Mab never fully comprehended what happened next. She could onlyassert that the expression on the face of the Nihilist was one offervent and devoted piety, as, with an ejaculation of 'Hallelujah!' heabsently put down his own bag and took up that of the General. Then hebroke out, as in irrepressible enthusiasm, with a verse of 'Dare to bea Daniel!' The General, turning round, looked duly edified at thisoutburst of ardour, and took up his bag of pamphlets, as he supposed, without any suspicion of the length to which his friend's devotionalrapture had carried him. The Nihilist then bade a hurried farewell, observing rather incoherently that the weight of sin was heavy on hisconscience, and he was going to submerge it instantly at St. Paul'sPier. With this parting statement he rushed from the station, and QueenMab, with a sense of misgiving, followed hastily. 

A moment after, the city was thrilled by a loud explosion. No one waskilled: above a hundred persons were injured, and the cause of thedisturbance was traced to a bag left by the General on the platformclose to the bookstall. For the next two or three days the station worea blackened, distracted, and generally intermingled appearance. The bigdrum suffered the most severely, and shreds of parchment were waftedto a great distance, and gathered up, many of them, by adherents of theArmy, as relics of this unfortunate martyr of Progress and of Nihilism. Many of the other instruments were shattered, and so great was the forceof the explosion, that a small fragment of a bagpipe was propelled intoSt. Paul's Cathedral, where it was discovered next day, on the lectern, by the Canon who read the lessons. The General, for some time, wassupposed to have disappeared with these instruments; but it wasafterwards asserted, on good authority, that he had been seen the sameevening on board a vessel bound for America; and the most reasonableconjecture appeared to be, that his native discrimination, at onceperceiving the weight of evidence for the prosecution, had led him, during the tumult incident on the explosion, to effect an escape. Certain it is that the Hall at Clapton knew him no more. 

Meanwhile, outside the station, amid a medley of blackened officials, disintegrated portions of railway carriages and book-stalls, SalvationArmy captains, converted reprobates, policemen, cabmen, and orangevendors, was found a Nihilist! Once a Nihilist, but a Nihilist nolonger. With a threepenny hymn-book in one hand and a black bag in theother, filled, not with dangerous explosives, but with a wholearsenal of tracts, 'War Crys, ' hymn-books, addresses to swearersand Sabbath-breakers, and other devotional literature, he was calmlyspouting:

'Convulsions shake the solid world, My faith shall never yield to fear!'

It may not be amiss, here, to say a few words as regards his subsequenthistory, as related by the Owl. After that somewhat untoward incident, he was not warmly received into the ranks of the Salvation Army. Acoldness sprang up which, though not inexplicable, had the unfortunateeffect of causing our Nihilist to renounce connection with that body. The influences which they had brought to bear upon him, however, didnot so easily pass away, and it was in the continued glow of piousenthusiasm that he joined a Dissenting Society, in which respectabilityand fervour were happily combined, and which, accusing the SalvationArmy of the fervour without the respectability, regarded the Nihilist asan interesting martyr of unjust suspicion. For two months he remainedin this society, and rose to the post of deacon, or what correspondedto deacon in their system; but at the end of that time his native biasproved too strong for him. With singular injudiciousness he brought tothe Sunday evening service a hymn-book carefully constructed, includingthe hymns of the society, and also a small but superlatively powerfulblock of explosive material, arranged to go off at the moment in whichthe collection was being taken up. So confident was he of the excellentworkmanship of this article that he did not scruple even to write hisname in it, and to leave it in the pew, assured that, once exploded, no trace of its ownership would remain. He then left before thecollection--a thing which he had been repeatedly known to do before, andwhich struck the congregation with no alarm. But, from the pew behind, an eye was upon him. It was the eye of the Professor. What was theProfessor! doing there? The answer was simple enough. He was writing abook on 'Competition, and the Survival of the Fittest, as displayedin Modern Sectarianism, ' and he had come to this! dissenting place ofworship in quest; of information. Always ardent in the pursuit ofknowledge, he entered the Nihilist's pew the moment that individualleft it, and began to scan the leaves of the hymn-book. To his infiniteamazement, on turning over page 227, he came upon a cunning piece ofmachinery, not a musical-box, like those one comes to unexpectedly inthe midst of photograph albums, but a "chef d'ouvre" of Donovan'sown, smouldering away at a great rate. The time was just up; thecollection-boxes were being handed round; instant destruction seemedinevitable, when, to the amazement of the congregation, the Professor, starting up, rushed to the altar, and, with _the cool forethought andintrepidity_ so eminently characteristic of that gifted man, droppedthe hymn-book into the large font, then full of water. The ignited wickceased to smoulder; the peril was averted. 

But the Nihilist was sought for in vain by the civil authorities. Glancing back at the threshold of the building, he had caught sight ofthe Professor, and, as if fascinated to the spot, he had watched himtake up the fatal hymn-book. Then, with an instant presentiment of theconsequences, he had rushed away. He has since joined the Parsees, andthe Democrat, visiting America on business, met him the other day inNew York, in the full costume of a Fire-worshipper. His complexion hadassumed a more Eastern appearance, and his turban was pulled low down, and partially concealed his features; but the Democrat's keen eyesdetected a resemblance, even before the Parsee began to hum, in asingularly rich and flexible tenor voice, a verse from Omar Khayyam:

 'Ah Love, could you and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, _Would we not shatter it to bits_, and then Remould it nearer to the Heart's Desire?'

From the depth of feeling which the Nihilist flung into these words, the Democrat conjectured that he had at last found his true devotionalsphere, but he did not venture on renewing the acquaintance, judiciouslyreflecting that the flowing costume of a Persian magnate was favourableto the secretion of infernal machines of all sorts and sizes. 

CHAPTER XI. -- HOME AND FOREIGN POLICY COMBINED. 

 Knowest thou the House where the members elected Consider the measure apart from the brand, Where Voting by Party is quite unaffected, And solely concerned with the good of the land? Knowest thou the House of Amendments and Clauses, Where Reason may reel but debate never pauses, Where words, the grand note of Humanity, reign (Oh Müller, Max Müller, expound us the gain!), Articulate always, if often insane?

 *****

 'Tis the Temple of Justice, the home of M. P. 's, Our noble, our own representatives these, But endless as sands of the desert, and worse, Are the Bills they discuss and the rules they rehearse. 

'What about the Government?' said Queen Mab to the Owl one day. 'Isthere anything that it would do to introduce into Polynesia--that is, if the Germans and the missionaries have gone away again? If theyhaven't--!' and she sighed. 

'I think you had better not try, ' returned her counsellor, afterconsidering the point. 'You have got a queen already, and I shouldthink the Polynesians are hardly ripe for a representative Government Nodoubt, in the course of the struggle for existence, they will get intoa good many difficulties, but I rather think that a British constitutionon the top of them would not improve matters. If you could get up aWitenagemot now!'

'Oh, the gathering of the Wise Men, ' said the fairy. 'I rememberthat. Has not England got a Witenagemot now, then?' she inquired. Herhistorical notions, during her long residence in Polynesia, had gotfearfully mixed up and hazy. 

'They don't call it so, ' said the Owl gravely. 'I wonder they don't, itwould be very suitable. '

'And what is it for?' asked Mab. 

'Chiefly to legislate for the Millennium, I think, ' replied the Owl. 'They have been legislating now for a considerable time, but it hasn'tcome yet. It is late. We expect, however, that it will arrive when theNew Democracy is in power. There has been a good deal of annoyance withthe Established Church lately for not telegraphing for it sooner, andpeople say that but for the Church's neglect the Millennium would havebeen here a very long time ago. Therefore, when the New Democracy comes, it intends, as the Democrat was saying, to be mild but firm, and seeif the Millennium can't be got to travel faster. And the first mild butfirm thing it will do will be to pull down the Established Church ofEngland and level it with the--with other denominations. '

'What _is_ the Millennium?' said Queen Mab. 

'Some think one thing and some another, ' returned the Owl. 'Perhaps wehad better not discuss it; it is so easy to be profane on the subjectbefore you know where you are. But you can hear Parliament legislatingfor it any day, and see people living up to it under the gangway. '

'I should like to go and see how they do it, ' said Mab, 'just for once. '

'Well, so you can, ' said the Owl. 'We can start directly if you like. Itis the safest place in London now that the session is on, because of theHome Rulers. The dynamiters couldn't very well blow it up with the Irishmembers in, and it would look too pointed for them all to be away at thetime of its being blown up. Make me invisible and we will go. '

So Queen Mab made them both invisible, and they flew away to the Houseof Commons. There ensconcing themselves on a high beam, they soon forgotthe cobwebs in the interest of the debate. It was a remarkable debate, and, what is also remarkable, I can find no traces of it in the Hansardfor that year, and it hardly conforms to the latest rules. Sometimes Iam inclined to think that the Owl must have invented it or dreamed it, but he says that every word is mathematically correct, and I know himfor a most truthful bird, who never told, or at all events never meantto tell, a lie. The debate was on a Bill introduced by Government forthe colonisation of the lunar world by emigration of the able-bodiedunemployed, and the House was full. All the Home Rulers were present, a fact which gave the Owl a feeling of pleasant security, and membersgenerally were wide awake and very attentive. 

In a brief speech of three hours the Prime Minister advocated theprinciples of the Bill. 

'I am not what is vulgarly called a Jingo' (hear, hear!) he saidfinally, 'and measures of simple aggrandisement, sir, I have never beenknown to advocate. '

'How about Bechuana?' from Mr. Jacob Bright. 

'If the rules of courtesy demanded a reply to that interruption, ' saidthe Prime Minister, 'I would answer, ' and he did so for an hour byShrewsbury clock. He then proceeded:

'But there is a wide difference between annexation necessary to maintainthe integrity of our glorious realm, as in the case of Bechuana, andthe annexations so often observed in the policy of Continental Powers, springing from a mere greed of empire. We may deplore, indeed, thata preceding Administration has involved us in responsibilities almostbeyond the power of statesmen to grapple with successfully; but that isthe habit of preceding Administrations, and now that such measuresare beyond recall we shall not shirk their consequences. The recentannexation of Mercury by Russia, and the presence in Jupiter of a Germanemissary, whose ulterior object, though the Press of that country stateshim to have gone there solely for the benefit of his health, cannotbe viewed with too much suspicion, make it incumbent on all partiesto unite in speedy measures for the security of our home and colonialinterests. ' (Ministerial cheers. ) 'I am at a loss to conceive, ' said amember of the Opposition, rising--and here the irregularity comes in, for which we can only refer readers to the Owl--'what is the drift ofthe remarks we have just listened to. I am no enemy to annexation, ashonourable members know well. We have been annexing ever since we had arood of land to make annexations to, and it would be a pity to beginto stop now. But as for occupying a place like the Moon, without water, without air, without inhabitants--that, sir, appears to me to be addingfolly to madness. Is the Government not content with the proofs of utterimbecility'--(order)--'I will say, of excruciating feebleness, it hasgiven to the public, that it must squander the resources of the nationfor the sake of a wild-goose chase like this? As for the German envoy, he has gone to Jupiter for the benefit of a settled climate, andto drink the waters, not to annex a planet which, with the presentindifferent means of communication, could be of no service to hiscountry. This is the simple explanation, which anybody but an old owllike the Prime Minister--'

'Order, order!' shouted several voices, and the Speaker, rising gravely, called upon the honourable member to withdraw the epithet of 'old owl'as unparliamentary. 

'I withdraw it, ' said the member readily. 'I should have said, thegentleman so highly distinguished for youth and sanity, who has plungedus into oceans of disaster at home and abroad, and, not content withmaking the world we live in too hot to hold us, intends to make all theplanets related to us in the Solar System too hot to hold us, as well. He has determined wantonly to attack a sphere with which we have alwaysmaintained the most cordial relations, to invade its territories, ravageits villages, and introduce the atrocious benefits of Maxim guns andGladstone claret to the Selenites. '

'The honourable member observed a moment ago, ' said the Prime Ministerironically, 'that there were no Selenites. '

'So I did, ' returned the Opposition member unabashed. 'I am not ashamedof that. If the Moon has no inhabitants, you can have no commercialrelations with the Moon; if it has, you can only demoralise anunsophisticated population. But I refuse to be held responsible forthe opinions I expressed two minutes ago. I am a true Briton, and Iabsolutely decline to limit myself to a single contradiction, or to adozen, in the course of a quarter of an hour's harangue. '

'We can quite believe _that_!' said the Home Secretary blandly. 'Buttill my honourable friend undertakes the management of affairs--beforewhich may heaven remove me! ("Hear, hear!" from the honourablefriend)--it is the business of competent statesmen to preserve relationsfriendly yet firm with foreign Powers terrestrial and celestial, andwe shall do it, sir, if we have to annex the Pleiades (cheers). To illustrate by a single case the urgency of an action which thehonourable member, in his own choice and happy phraseology, stigmatisedas a wild-goose chase. If a Power which I will not specify is allowedto occupy that interesting orb which it is our hope to link closely withour own destinies in national union--_what of the tides_? (Cheers. )Sir, it has long been our proud boast that Britannia rules the waves. How much longer, I ask you, would she continue to rule them, if once thesway with which the studies of our childhood have made us all familiarpassed into the hands of alien and perhaps hostile authorities?(Prolonged cheers. ) Can we doubt that unfriendly arbitration wouldeventually turn away all the tides from our hitherto favoured island, and would divert the current of the Gulf Stream to Powers with whom ourrelations are strained, while punctually supplying us with icebergsand a temperature below zero from the Arctic Zone? Once hemmed in (orsurrounded) by icebergs, what becomes of your carrying trade? Can wedoubt that the trade-winds, too, would be mere playthings in the handsof a lunar colonial Government, inspired in every action by the maliceof an unfriendly terrestrial Admiralty, and that, in short, by aterrible reversal of the national motto for which we feel so just areverence, Britannia would cease to rule the waves, while the waveswould rule Britannia?' (Loud and prolonged Ministerial cheers, duringwhich another member of the Opposition rose and inquired the precisepolicy of Her Majesty's Government towards the Selenites. )

'I am instructed, ' said a Cabinet Minister, 'to inform the honourablemember that the Selenites have no existence. The step contemplated istherefore a mere peaceful annexation, and war and bloodshed, such aswere pathetically alluded to by the honourable member for Putney, areout of the question. I may here bring clearly before the minds ofthe House the fact that, as the Moon is destitute of any atmosphere, scientific men have unanimously declared the impossibility of animallife upon it. '

'I should like to know, ' said a member, rising below the gangway, 'whether the Government has given its attention to one point, namely, that as where there is no atmosphere there can be no inhabitants, wherethere can be no inhabitants there can be no representatives of rivalterrestrial Powers. Unless the forces of a certain Power are capableof living without air, I fail to see that we have anything to apprehendfrom their occupation of the Moon. Russians, for instance, are notpersonally dear to me; and I should say that the more of them introducecivilisation to that extinct and uninhabitable sphere the better; butI utterly decline to go there myself, or to vote for sending even ourconvicts there, much less our able-bodied unemployed. I should like thislittle difficulty explained, for I confess that, to an unstatesmanlikemind, this debate seems to be verging on nonsense. ' 'I had not thoughtit necessary, at this early stage of the debate, ' observed the PrimeMinister plaintively, 'to remind the House that no such difficulty asthat present to the mind of the honourable member really exists. Has myhonourable friend below the gangway never heard of a mental or amoral atmosphere? Is it not one which inevitably surrounds us, in theincandescent Soudan or in the chill abode of departed Selenites? What heregards as an insuperable drawback only furnishes me with another reasonfor urging the Bill upon you. Would it not be a disgrace to theBritish flag, ever the friend of civilisation and of virtue, to allow aperverted moral atmosphere to be introduced into an orb which has doneso much for us in the way of tidal action, of artistic enjoyment, and, I will say, of amatory sentiment--(cheers)--as our satellite? Now whatkind of moral atmosphere, I would ask, surrounds the average Russian? Ofa mental atmosphere I will not speak--suffice it to say that that alsois immeasurably inferior; but is it fitting for a nation like ours, inthe van of progress, to suffer a moral atmosphere degraded, pernicious, and suffocating to circulate in regions to which we could furnish one soinfinitely more salubrious?' (Prolonged Ministerial cheers. )

CHAPTER XII. -- THE DELUGE. 

 'The drivelling of politicians!' Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 

It is said that the unexpected always happens, and therefore onemay deplore without surprise the fact that schemes set on foot by acharitable government to relieve the necessities of their starvingfellow-countrymen should frequently have a diametrically oppositeeffect. Into the Ministerial cheers that followed the Premier's laststatement broke a sound outside the House, a sound as of much wailing, the howling of innumerable newsboys, the cries of 'Woe, woe!' the dirgeof an empire _qui s'en va_! With those now familiar noises was mingled, but at a greater distance, a strain of martial music. 

'What is this?' said the Prime Minister through the increasing tumult, with a vague idea of legions of the able-bodied unemployed coming inperson to state their views on the debate. 'A riot?'

'No, ' shouted the member below the gangway, promptly divining, by aprophetic instinct, the real nature of the case. 'It is a Revolution. '

'Heavens!' said the leader of the Opposition helplessly. 'I hope not. Ihad no idea!'

It was too true. The Army was advancing to the House--the broken-down, ragged, wasted remnant of an Army of Heroes. Sent forth, too late, to'smash' Prester John, and relieve the Equator, they had all but overcomethe Desert, and had only been defeated by space. Too many of them laylike the vanished legions of Cambyses, swathed by the sand and lulledby the music of the night wind. The remnant had returned of their ownmotion. It was an impressive spectacle, and the British public, findingno more appropriate action, cheered vociferously, while the newsboys, hundreds of them, continued to howl one against another. For thenewspapers had got wind of Something, and it only remained for themto find out what the Something was. At present they had confused thefacts--an accident which will happen sometimes with the best-regulatednewspapers. But all of them had made shots at the truth, more or lessun-veracious. 'The Banner' asserted that Sir Charles Dilke and theDemocrat, arrayed in costumes of the beginning of the seventeenthcentury for effect, were parading the cellars under the House of Lords, after the manner of Guy Fawkes, laying trains of gunpowder and singingthe well-known lines about the fifth of November. The 'Daily Pulpit, 'on the other hand, declared that Lord Randolph Church-hill had set theThames on fire with native genius and a lighted fusee, which, on theface of it, seemed so extremely probable, that all of the Britishpublic that was not cheering the Army's arrival rushed to the bridges toinvestigate the river. Delegates from the 'Holywell Street Gazette, ' inthe meantime, were madly interviewing everything and everybody withsuch celerity that the British public probably arrived at the truth ofmatters somewhere about that journal's fifth edition. Up to this time, unfortunately, the 'Gazette' had only been able to contradict flatly allthe statements of all its contemporaries in language, to say the leastof it, most emphatic. But at a national crisis one is nothing if notemphatic. And this was a national crisis. And while the crowd wasrushing and swaying hither and thither, and the light-fingered brigadewas taking advantage of the crowd's absent-mindedness to borrow itswatches and pocket-handkerchiefs, the General, just returned from theDesert, with the demeanour of a second Cromwell, was marching on theHouse of Commons. In the House itself reigned confusion much worseconfounded. There was no time for lengthy recrimination, for in anothermoment the General, alone, and with a mien of indignant resolution thatstruck a chill to the hearts of the most irrepressible members, was striding boldly up to the table. The Speaker looked at theSerjeant-at-Arms, and the Serjeant-at-Arms looked at the Speaker, butneither of them said a word. This was worse than Mr. Bradlaugh at hisworst. 

'Behold in this handful of broken and wasted men, returned, not by_your_ order, but by _mine_, to their native shore, ' exclaimed theGeneral in a voice of stern thunder that reverberated throughthe building, 'the result of your imbecile, idiotic, ignominious, incomprehensible policy and of your absurd "Intelligence" and"Righteousness!" Call yourselves a Parliament? I tell you, yourConstitution is rotten to the core. Do you think we are to shed ourblood for you, to perish of famine, sword and pestilence, while you sithere, talking the most delirious nonsense that ever was talked since theConfusion of Tongues? You never have anything fresh to say; but thereyou are, and nothing stops you. If it was the Day of Judgment you wouldgo on moving resolutions; and you have the insolence to maunder overyour gallant band of heroes, sacrificed to a whim of party rancour or astruggle for place. We put you here to maintain law and order, to givejustice to your fellow-countrymen, and you sit listening to your ownmelodious voices raving of the welfare of the nation, of PoliticalEconomy, Budgets, and Ballots; but so much as the meaning of truejustice the bulk of you never guess. _You_, you turn Parliament into aclub, and your ambition is satisfied by invitations to dinner. Butwe have borne enough, and marched enough; now you must march. We havetrudged at your bidding thousands of weary miles, for an end you madeimpossible by your word-splitting cowardice. _Your_ turn has come. Thetroops are in readiness; we are drilling the unemployed in event ofcivil war, and you had better look out. "Obey me, "' added the General, insensibly sliding into a popular quotation, '"and my nature's ile:disobey me, and it's still ile, but it's ile of vitriol. "'

For the most part honourable members sat stunned and silent; but fromthe more rebellious came a few cries of 'Order!' 'Turn him out!' and theSpeaker slowly rose. 'I would remind the gallant General of the MutinyAct, ' he said. 

'An obsolete restriction of free contract, ' said the General. He stampedhis foot, and in a second a file of soldiers had appeared. 

'Take away that bauble!' exclaimed the General to his aide-decamp ina severe and terrible tone, as he pointed to the mace. But as he gazedupon the venerable emblem his frown melted, and his eyes grew dim. For one instant the victorious warrior, the inexorable avenger of hiscountry's wrongs, was the dreamy worshipper of Blue China, the aestheticadorer of marquetry, and Chippendale. 

'Take away that bauble, ' he repeated in a low voice of ineffablesweetness, 'and deposit it in the upper compartment of my bureau. Youknow the spot. The bauble has a Chippendale feeling about it. '

Then his fortitude returned; he was once more the dauntless General, thesaviour of society. 

'A passing weakness, ' he said, smiling sadly. '"Richard's himselfagain!"'

Into the lull that followed his words fell the familiar accents of thefuture Dictator, the Member for Woodstock, as he said in a cool aside toMr. Goschen:

'The Hour has come. '

And Mr. Goschen, with his usual calm impartiality, replied:

'Yes, Randolph, and the Man!'

Through all the uproar Queen Mab and the Owl had looked on withbreathless interest; but now, at a reiterated mandate from the General, the members were compelled to disperse, some furious, some alarmed, andall discomfited. There only remained one policeman, the General, andthe Democrat to fight it out between themselves, and decide whether aEuropean war would be advisable, or whether they should disband the armyand devote themselves to Home Reform. But by this time Queen Mab andthe Owl had had enough, for the din which still continued outside thewindows was giving them neuralgia. They therefore left the Houseand flew away westward over the crowd, where differences of opinion, expressed in the British public's own graceful and forcible manner, had become the order of the day. They met Mr. Bradlaugh at a littledistance, hurrying to the scene of combat with the air of 'Under whichking, Bezonian?' and if the locality had not been so extremely noisythey could not have but turned back to see the fun. The Prime Ministerhad unaccountably (though not unexpectedly) disappeared from thearena, and his adherents were under the impression that he had beentreacherously stowed away in the Tower or some subterranean dungeon. Thefact was, that, as eloquence could have no effect on the House in itspresent state of delirium, the temptation to study Hittite inscriptionsin their native home became too strong for him, and he was on hispeaceful way to the shores of the Orontes and the ruins of Megiddo. 

Shortly after, the Owl and the Fairy met the Bishop, who had heard ofthe catastrophe, and was torn by conflicting emotions; personalanxiety about his prospects being overclouded by the fear that thenew Government might proceed to pass the Deceased Wife's Sister Billimmediately. 'And a man who marries his Deceased Wife's Sister, ' heexclaimed pathetically to the air, 'may very soon end in the swamps ofRationalism!' Only Queen Mab and the Owl heard the words as they flewoverhead. Next they met Mr. Matthew Arnold, smiling a happy smile, andconcocting a 'childlike and bland' article for the 'Nineteenth Century'on the present crisis. So they flew on westward till, gaining a freerand fresher neighbourhood, they came upon a wide green lawn, and onthe lawn three old acquaintances, the Poet, the Palæonto-theologist, and--wholly altered from the pale and dreamy boy of theirrecollection--Walter, the Professor's child. 

The Professor was a man given to promptitude of speech and action, and, once awakened to the serious state of Walter's health, physical andmental, he had resolved, at whatever discomfort to himself, to check theboy's undue mental precocity and substitute for it mere physical vigour. He was content with no half-measures, and he sent the lad at once to apreparatory school for Eton. At Eton he knew Walter's brain would have arest. The effect was miraculous. The boy, whom the Palaeonto-theologisthad rashly invited to spend a holiday at his home, was a differentcreature. He had become sturdy and robust; he had forgotten his newreligion of Dala, with his science primers, and could no more havecomposed a hymn to a fairy than he could have endured a false quantity. He had forgotten the Goona stones; he had forgotten the dates of theKings of England. He said that bogies were all bosh; he said thatCardinal Wolsey was imprisoned in the Tower for thirteen years and wrote'Robinson Crusoe' there, and that the Nile rose in Mungo Park. He hadforgotten his father's instructions, and regarded birds, not as productsof Evolution, but as things suitable to shy stones at, and to be treatedwith contempt, and catapults. He was incorrigible at Euclid, but he wasexcellent at cricket, and on this occasion he had fagged the Poet andthe Palæonto-theologist to bowl to and field out for him. It was beyondhuman nature to expect them to enjoy it. The Poet was in the midst of asublime stanza when he was peremptorily ordered to come and bowl, and hewent dreamily and reluctantly, to be greeted with a further mandate of'Look sharp there!' The Palaeonto-theologist was deep in an exhaustiveinventory of the animals in Noah's Ark, and was discussing theprobability of the Mammoth's having been one of its residents. If so, there came the knotty point of how Noah contrived to stow him and theMegatherium in comfortably, and whether they never wanted to do awaywith the other animals, in which case the Patriarch must have hadstirring times. The Palæonto-theologist was just about to begin thegrand chain of evidence in which he proves conclusively, from carefulstudy of the original Hebrew manuscripts, and from examination of thesoil of Mount Ararat, whose fossils are abraded to this day where theArk rested on them, that the dimensions of the Ark were anything butwhat they are said to be, when Walter ordered him to come and field. There was no help for it; he went and fielded; 'he ran, he fell, hefielded well. '

While he and the Poet were thus occupied, Mab and the Owl rested on agreat horse-chestnut and watched the game, and Mab, under the impressionthat the boy, at sight of her, would be filled with wonder and delight, slipped off her invisible cloak. For some time he was too much absorbedin 'crumping the Poet's slows, ' as he said, to notice her; but at last, when the Poet and the Palæonto-theologist were utterly 'collared' (asWalter put it) and exhausted, and the perspiration stood thick ontheir intellectual foreheads, the advent of refreshments gained thema momentary respite. Walter attacked the fruit and cakes so vigorouslythat Queen Mab grew impatient, and descended to a lower branch of thehuge tree, where at last the boy, raising his eyes, beheld her. 

'Hi!' he cried, rushing indiscriminately at his companions. 'Get me acatapult, lower boy, I say! Stones, peashooter, anything. Look alive!Here goes!'

And he assailed the astonished Mab with a cricket-ball, and next 'itcame to pleats, ' as Mrs. Major O'Dowd said; and then he hurled a jampotand a fruit-knife. Fortunately for the fairy, who at the moment wastoo much astonished to move, his aim was rendered inaccurate by hisexcitement, and the missiles flew wide. The unhappy fags had startedup, and the Poet, looking round bewildered, with a volley of desperateexpletives un-uttered in his soul, caught sight of Mab. 

'Celestial being!' he exclaimed rapturously. 'I again behold thee. Bright inmate! How did it run?'

'Bother your verses!' cried the boy with utter contempt. 'Shy at it, youduffer! Oh, what a Butterfly! Get her into the teapot. Blockhead!'

This last disdainfully to himself, for he had hurled the ancient andvaluable teapot at Mab, who was flying to a higher branch, and theteapot had missed. 

'Rash boy!' cried the Palæonto-theologist, shaking him angrily, 'youhave broken my grandfather's teapot. '

'Run for the butterfly-net, ' returned the boy unabashed. 'By George, I'll give you the jolliest licking!'

'Hi, there she goes! Seize her!' he shouted distractedly, and theunlucky Palæonto-theologist rushed after a butterfly-net, while QueenMab, in unutterable indignation, rose slowly into the air, followedby the bewildered Owl, who had not had time to explain the boy's 'newdeparture' to himself on scientific principles. It was not till theywere fully half a mile from the ill-starred spot that the Owl opened hisbeak to murmur, with an air of long-suffering melancholy but scientificdelight, the word--

'Reaction!'

But Queen Mab, after this crowning insult, was fain to depart fromBritain and renounce the higher civilisation. In the Councils of theNew Democracy she had no place. Church and State abjured her: the risinggeneration needed no fairies, but was content with football and cricket, 'Treasure Island, ' and the Latin Grammar. Education, Philosophy, andthe Philistines had made of the island she once loved well a wildernesswherein no fairy might henceforth furl its wings. 

She said 'good-bye' to the Owl, who shed one tear at parting, and toall the loyal birds, and went back to Samoa. But alas! Samoa, likeGreat Britain, was no longer any place for her. It was annexed: it wasevangelised. The natives of it were going to church; they were goingto Sunday School; they were going to heaven. They were sending theirchildren to be educated at English colleges: they were translatingTennyson and Wesley's sermons, and learning the catechism, and readingthe Testament in the original Greek, and wearing high-crowned hats andpaper collars. There was no end of the things they were doing, and theyhad no time for fairies. 

Queen Mab summoned her Court together in despair, and left for one ofthe Admiralty Islands. There, till the civilisation that dogs the stepsof the old folk-lore has driven her thence--with constitutions, andmicroscopes, and a higher Pantheism that leaves the older Pantheismin the lurch, and other advantages of the nineteenth century--she issecure. We trust that she is also happy, and that the shadow of theapproaching hour when she will be ultimately reduced by scientifictheologians to a symbol of some deeper verity, the conception of menwhose understandings could not cope, like ours, with abstract truth, isnot cast heavily upon her path. For she knows well, now, that her day isover, that she is too tangible by far for a higher Pantheism, and thatonly among the heathen, in some obscure corner of Oceania, she is stillpermitted to linger on, till that lagging island too receives its chrismof intellect, and is caught up into the van of time. 

The Owl is yet the wisest of the birds, though he has commenced a courseof psychological research that, it is to be feared, if persisted in, will seriously injure his brain. For he said, only yesterday, that as hewas conscious of external objects merely through the medium of his ownego, how was he to know whether or not his own ego was the sole ego inthe universe--in fact, composed the universe? He wished to be informedwhether he could possibly be nothing but an impression or somebodyelse's ego; and said finally, in a despondent tone, that it was hopelessto regard this mundane scheme as anything but a subjective phenomenon, mere _Schein_ or _maya_, and that he gave it up. 

But the Democrat, untroubled by transcendental scruples, goes on hisway, rejoicing in the prospect of the Millennium, now close at hand. Hedoes not much care what the universe is, but he knows what he wants toget out of it, and that is sufficient for his purpose. To be sure, hewants to get what no one ever did or will obtain, but his moments areimpassioned, and his idea is a distraction, like another. 

PRINTED BY SPOTTSWOODE AND CO. , NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON