The Crown of Wild Olive
democracy and the apparently departing power of feudalism; and another
struggle, no less imminent, and far more dangerous, between wealth and
pauperism. These two quarrels are constantly thought of as the same.
They are being fought together, and an apparently common interest unites
for the most part the millionaire with the noble, in resistance to a
multitude, crying, part of it for bread and part of it for liberty.
And yet no two quarrels can be more distinct. Riches--so far from being
necessary to noblesse--are adverse to it. So utterly adverse, that the
first character of all the Nobilities which have founded great dynasties
in the world is to be poor;--often poor by oath--always poor by
generosity. And of every true knight in the chivalric ages, the first
thing history tells you is, that he never kept treasure for himself.
Thus the causes of wealth and noblesse are not the same; but opposite.
On the other hand, the causes of anarchy and of the poor are not the
same, but opposite. Side by side, in the same rank, are now indeed set
the pride that revolts against authority, and the misery that appeals
against avarice. But, so far from being a common cause, all anarchy is
the forerunner of poverty, and all prosperity begins in obedience. So
that thus, it has become impossible to give due support to the cause of
order, without seeming to countenance injury; and impossible to plead
justly the claims of sorrow, without seeming to plead also for those of
license.
Let me try, then, to put in very brief terms, the real plan of this
various quarrel, and the truth of the cause on each side. Let us face
that full truth, whatever it may be, and decide what part, according to
our power, we should take in the quarrel.
First. For eleven hundred years, all but five, since Charlemagne set on
his head the Lombard crown, the body of European people have submitted
patiently to be governed; generally by kings--always by single leaders
of some kind. But for the last fifty years they have begun to suspect,
and of late they have many of them concluded, that they have been on the
whole ill-governed, or misgoverned, by their kings. Whereupon they say,
more and more widely, "Let us henceforth have no kings; and no
government at all."
Now we said, we must face the full truth of the matter, in order to see
what we are to do. And the truth is that the people _have_ been
misgoverned;--that very little is to be said, hitherto, for most of
their masters--and that certainly in many places they will try their new
system of "no masters:"--and as that arrangement will be delightful to
all foolish persons, and, at first, profitable to all wicked ones,--and
as these classes are not wanting or unimportant in any human
society,--the experiment is likely to be tried extensively. And the
world may be quite content to endure much suffering with this fresh
hope, and retain its faith in anarchy, whatever comes of it, till it can
endure no more.
Then, secondly. The people have begun to suspect that one particular
form of this past misgovernment has been, that their masters have set
them to do all the work, and have themselves taken all the wages. In a
word, that what was called governing them, meant only wearing fine
clothes, and living on good fare at their expense. And I am sorry to
say, the people are quite right in this opinion also. If you inquire
into the vital fact of the matter, this you will find to be the constant
structure of European society for the thousand years of the feudal
system; it was divided into peasants who lived by working; priests who
lived by begging; and knights who lived by pillaging; and as the
luminous public mind becomes gradually cognizant of these facts, it will
assuredly not suffer things to be altogether arranged that way any more;
and the devising of other ways will be an agitating business; especially
because the first impression of the intelligent populace is, that
whereas, in the dark ages, half the nation lived idle, in the bright
ages to come, the whole of it may.
Now, thirdly--and here is much the worst phase of the crisis. This past
system of misgovernment, especially during the last three hundred years,
has prepared, by its neglect, a class among the lower orders which it is
now peculiarly difficult to govern. It deservedly lost their
respect--but that was the least part of the mischief. The deadly part of
it was, that the lower orders lost their habit, and at last their
faculty, of respect;--lost the very capability of reverence, which is
the most precious part of the human soul. Exactly in the degree in which
you can find creatures greater than yourself, to look up to, in that
degree, you are ennobled yourself, and, in that degree, happy. If you
could live always in the presence of archangels, you would be happier
than in that of men; but even if only in the company of admirable
knights and beautiful ladies, the more noble and bright they were, and
the more you could reverence their virtue the happier you would be. On
the contrary, if you were condemned to live among a multitude of idiots,
dumb, distorted and malicious, you would not be happy in the constant
sense of your own superiority. Thus all real joy and power of progress
in humanity depend on finding something to reverence; and all the
baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain. Now, by
general misgovernment, I repeat, we have created in Europe a vast
populace, and out of Europe a still vaster one, which has lost even the
power and conception of reverence;[139]--which exists only in the
worship of itself--which can neither see anything beautiful around it,
nor conceive anything virtuous above it; which has, towards all goodness
and greatness, no other feelings than those of the lowest
creatures--fear, hatred, or hunger a populace which has sunk below your
appeal in their nature, as it has risen beyond your power in their
multitude;--whom you can now no more charm than you can the adder, nor
discipline, than you can the summer fly.
It is a crisis, gentlemen; and time to think of it. I have roughly and
broadly put it before you in its darkness. Let us look what we may find
of light.
Only the other day, in a journal which is a fairly representative
exponent of the Conservatism of our day, and for the most part not at
all in favor of strikes or other popular proceedings; only about three
weeks since, there was a leader, with this, or a similar, title--"What
is to become of the House of Lords?" It startled me, for it seemed as if
we were going even faster than I had thought, when such a question was
put as a subject of quite open debate, in a journal meant chiefly for
the reading of the middle and upper classes. Open or not--the debate is
near. What _is_ to become of them? And the answer to such question
depends first on their being able to answer another question--"What is
the _use_ of them!" For some time back, I think the theory of the nation
has been, that they are useful as impediments to business, so as to give
time for second thoughts. But the nation is getting impatient of
impediments to business; and certainly, sooner or later, will think it
needless to maintain these expensive obstacles to its humors. And I
have not heard, either in public, or from any of themselves, a clear
expression of their own conception of their use. So that it seems thus
to become needful for all men to tell them, as our one quite
clear-sighted teacher, Carlyle, has been telling us for many a year,
that the use of the Lords of a country is to _govern_ the country. If
they answer that use, the country will rejoice in keeping them; if not,
that will become of them which must of all things found to have lost
their serviceableness.
Here, therefore, is the one question, at this crisis, for them, and for
us. Will they be lords indeed, and give us laws--dukes indeed, and give
us guiding--princes indeed, and give us beginning, of truer dynasty,
which shall not be soiled by covetousness, nor disordered by iniquity?
Have they themselves sunk so far as not to hope this? Are there yet any
among them who can stand forward with open English brows, and say,--So
far as in me lies, I will govern with my might, not for Dieu et _mon_
Droit, but for the first grand reading of the war cry, from which that
was corrupted, "Dieu et Droit?" Among them I know there are some--among
you, soldiers of England, I know there are many, who can do this; and in
you is our trust. I, one of the lower people of your country, ask of you
in their name--you whom I will not any more call soldiers, but by the
truer name of Knights;--Equites of England. How many yet of you are
there, knights errant now beyond all former fields of danger--knights
patient now beyond all former endurance; who still retain the ancient
and eternal purpose of knighthood, to subdue the wicked, and aid the
weak? To them, be they few or many, we English people call for help to
the wretchedness, and for rule over the baseness, of multitudes desolate
and deceived, shrieking to one another this new gospel of their new
religion. "Let the weak do as they can, and the wicked as they will."
I can hear you saying in your hearts, even the bravest of you, "The time
is past for all that." Gentlemen, it is not so. The time has come for
_more_ than all that. Hitherto, soldiers have given their lives for
false fame, and for cruel power. The day is now when they must give
their lives for true fame, and for beneficent power: and the work is
near every one of you--close beside you--the means of it even thrust
into your hands. The people are crying to you for command, and you stand
there at pause, and silent. You think they don't want to be commanded;
try them; determine what is needful for them--honorable for them; show
it them, promise to bring them to it, and they will follow you through
fire. "Govern us," they cry with one heart, though many minds. They
_can_ be governed still, these English; they are men still; not gnats,
nor serpents. They love their old ways yet, and their old masters, and
their old land. They would fain live in it, as many as may stay there,
if you will show them how, there, to live;--or show them even, how,
there, like Englishmen, to die.
"To live in it, as many as may!" How many do you think may? How many
_can_? How many do you want to live there? As masters, your first object
must be to increase your power; and in what does the power of a country
consist? Will you have dominion over its stones, or over its clouds, or
over its souls? What do you mean by a great nation, but a great
multitude of men who are true to each other, and strong, and of worth?
Now you can increase the multitude only definitely--your island has only
so much standing room--but you can increase the _worth in_definitely. It
is but a little island;--suppose, little as it is, you were to fill it
with friends? You may, and that easily. You must, and that speedily; or
there will be an end to this England of ours, and to all its loves and
enmities.
To fill this little island with true friends--men brave, wise, and
happy! Is it so impossible, think you, after the world's eighteen
hundred years of Christianity, and our own thousand years of toil, to
fill only this little white gleaming crag with happy creatures, helpful
to each other? Africa, and India, and the Brazilian wide-watered plain,
are these not wide enough for the ignorance of our race? have they not
space enough for its pain? Must we remain _here_ also savage,--_here_
at enmity with each other,--_here_ foodless, houseless, in rags, in
dust, and without hope, as thousands and tens of thousands of us are
lying? Do not think it, gentlemen. The thought that it is inevitable is
the last infidelity; infidelity not to God only, but to every creature