No More Learning

In the last-named volumes, all on social topics, Mr. Mallock pre-
sents himself as a sedate Conservative, committed to hereditary legis-
lation, the sacredness of the game laws, the Doomsday Book, and the
rest of mediævalism. Against democratic theories concerning social
equality, labor, and property, he sets up the counter proposition that
labor is not the cause of wealth, and of itself would be powerless to
produce it. As for social equality, he sees that diversity of station is
a part of the framework that holds society together.
These books are written in a serious manner. But it is interest-
ing to mark the characteristics of the author's individual and original
genius, as obvious in a blue-book as in a novel. It is an axiom that
the successful advocate must give the impression that he himself has
no doubt of his cause. This Mr. Mallock almost never does. The
more positive his plea, the more visible between the lines is the
mocking, unconvinced expression of the author's other self. More-
over, his fastidious discontent, and the subtlety of mind which is the
greatest perhaps of his many charms, point him toward some un-
explored quarter, where, as he has not investigated it, he fancies the
truth may lie. The reader of Mallock goes to him for witty com-
ment, satire, suggestion; and to get into a certain high-bred society


## p. 9626 (#34) ############################################

9626
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
where the scholar is at home and the gospel of good-breeding is
preached. But that reader will never know in what social system of
the past - in slavery, feudalism, or absolutism - Mallock's Utopia is
-
to be sought.
AN EVENING'S TABLE-TALK AT THE VILLA
From The New Republic)
N°
PROPOSAL could have been happier than Lady Grace's, of
the garden banquet in the pavilion. It seemed to the
guests, when they were all assembled there, that the lovely
summer's day was going to close with a scene from fairy-land.
The table itself, with its flowers and glowing fruit, and its many-
colored Venetian glass, shone and gleamed and sparkled in the
evening light, that was turning outside to a cool mellow amber;
and above, from the roof, in which the dusk was already dark-
ness, hung china lamps in the shape of green and purple grape
clusters, looking like luminous fruit stolen from Aladdin's garden.
The pavilion, open on all sides, was supported on marble pillars
that were almost hidden in red and white roses. Behind, the eye
rested on great tree trunks and glades of rich foliage; and before,
it would pass over turf and flowers, till it reached the sea be-
yond, on which in another hour the faint silver of the moonlight
would begin to tremble.
There was something in the whole scene that was at once
calming and exhilarating; and nearly all present seemed to feel
in some measure this double effect of it.
Dr. Jenkinson had
been quite restored by an afternoon's nap; and his face was now
all a-twinkle with a fresh benignity, that had, however, like an
early spring morning, just a faint suspicion of frost in it. Mr.
Storks even was less severe than usual; and as he raised his
champagne to his lips, he would at times look very nearly con-
versational.
" “My dear Laurence,” exclaimed Mr. Herbert, “it really
almost seems as if your visions of the afternoon had come true,
and that we actually were in your New Republic already. I can
only say that if it is at all like this, it will be an entirely charm-
ing place — too charming, perhaps. But now remember this:
you have but half got through the business to which you first
addressed yourselves, - that of forming a picture of a perfect


## p. 9627 (#35) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9627
>>
aristocracy, an aristocracy in the true and genuine sense of the
word. You are all to have culture, or taste. Very good: you
have talked a great deal about that, and you have seen what you
mean by it; and you have recognized, above all, that it includes
a discrimination between right and wrong. But now you, with
all this taste and culture,- you gifted men and women of the
nineteenth century,- what sort of things does your taste teach
you to reach out towards ? In what actions and aims, in what
affections and emotions, would you place your happiness? That
is what I want to hear,— the practical manifestations of this
culture. ”
“Ah,” said Mr. Rose, “I have at this moment a series of
essays in the press, which would go far towards answering these
questions of yours. They do indeed deal with just this: the
effect of the choicer culture of this century on the soul of man;
the ways in which it endows him with new perceptions; how it
has made him, in fact, a being altogether more highly organ-
All I regret is that these choicer souls, these Xaplevtes, are
as yet like flowers that have not found a climate in which they
can thrive properly. That mental climate will doubtless come
with time. What we have been trying to do this afternoon is, I
imagine, nothing more than to anticipate it in imagination. ”
“Well,” said Mr. Herbert, with a little the tone of an Inquis-
itor, “that is just what I have been asking. What will this
climate be like, and what will these flowers be like in this cli-
mate? How would your culture alter and better the present, if
its powers were equal to its wishes ? »
Mr. Rose's soft lulling tone harmonized well with the scene
and hour, and the whole party seemed willing to listen to him;
or at any rate, no one felt any prompting to interrupt him.
"I can show you an example, Mr. Herbert,” he said, “of
culture demanding a finer climate, in— if you will excuse my
seeming egoism - in myself. For instance (to take the widest
matter I can fix upon, the general outward surroundings of our
lives),- often, when I walk about London, and see how hideous
its whole external aspect is, and what a dissonant population
throng it, a chill feeling of despair comes over me. Consider
how the human eye delights in form and color, and the ear in
tempered and harmonious sounds; and then think for a moment
of a London street! Think of the shapeless houses, the forest of
ghastly chimney-pots, of the hell of distracting noises made by
»


## p. 9628 (#36) ############################################

9628
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
»
the carts, the cabs, the carriages; think of the bustling, common-
place, careworn crowds that jostle you; think of an omnibus,
think of a four-wheeler — »
"I often ride in an omnibus,” said Lord Allen, with a slight
smile, to Miss Merton.
"It is true,” replied Mr. Rose, only overhearing the tone in
which these words were said, “that one may ever and again
catch some touch of sunlight that will for a moment make the
meanest object beautiful with its furtive alchemy. But that is
Nature's work, not man's; and we must never confound the
accidental beauty that Nature will bestow on man's work, even
at its worst, with the rational and designed beauty of man's
work at its best. It is this rational human beauty that I say
our modern city life is so completely wanting in; nay, the look
of out-of-door London seems literally to stifle the very power of
imagining such beauty possible. Indeed, as I wander along our
streets, pushing my way among the throngs of faces, — faces
puckered with misdirected thought or expressionless with none;
barbarous faces set towards Parliament, or church, or scientific
lecture-rooms, or government offices, or counting-houses, - I say,
as I push my way amongst all the sights and sounds of the
streets of our great city, only one thing ever catches my eye
that breaks in upon my mood and warns me I need not de.
spair. ”
“And what is that ? ” asked Allen with some curiosity.
« The shops,” Mr. Rose answered, “of certain of our uphol-
sterers and dealers in works of art. Their windows, as I look
into them, act like a sudden charm on me; like a splash of cold
water dashed on my forehead when I am fainting. For I seem
there to have got a glimpse of the real heart of things; and as
my eyes rest on the perfect pattern (many of which are really
quite delicious; indeed, when I go to ugly houses, I often take
a scrap of some artistic crétonne with me in my pocket as a
kind of æsthetic smelling-salts), — I say, when I look in at their
windows, and my eyes rest on the perfect pattern of some new
fabric for a chair or for a window curtain, or on some new de-
sign for a wall paper, or on some old china vase, I become at
once sharply conscious, Mr. Herbert, that despite the ungenial
mental climate of the present age, strange yearnings for and
knowledge of true beauty are beginning to show themselves like
flowers above the weedy soil; and I remember, amidst the roar
»


## p. 9629 (#37) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9629
-
and clatter of our streets, and the mad noises of our own times,
that there is amongst us a growing number who have deliber-
ately turned their backs on all these things, and have thrown
their whole souls and sympathies into the happier art ages of the
past. They have gone back," said Mr. Rose, raising his voice a
little, «to Athens and to Italy; to the Italy of Leo and to the
Athens of Pericles. To such men the clamor, the interests, the
struggles of our own times become as meaningless as they really
are. To them the boyhood of Bathyllus is of more moment than
the manhood of Napoleon. Borgia is a more familiar name than
Bismarck. I know, indeed, and I really do not blame them,
several distinguished artists who, resolving to make their whole
lives consistently perfect, will on principle never admit a news-
paper into their houses that is of later date than the times of
Addison: and I have good trust that the number of such men
is on the increase; men, I mean," said Mr. Rose, toying tenderly
with an exquisite wine-glass of Salviati's, who with a steady
and set purpose follow art for the sake of art, beauty for the
sake of beauty, love for the sake of love, life for the sake of
life. ”
Mr. Rose's slow gentle voice, which was apt. at certain times
to become peculiarly irritating, sounded now like the evening air
grown articulate; and had secured him hitherto a tranquil hear-
ing, as if by a kind of spell. This, however, seemed here in
sudden danger of snapping.
«What, Mr. Rose! ” exclaimed Lady Ambrose, "do you mean
to say, then, that the number of people is on the increase who
won't read the newspapers ?
"Why, the men must be absolute idiots ! ” said Lady Grace,
shaking her gray curls, and putting on her spectacles to look at
Mr. Rose.
Mr. Rose, however, was imperturbable.
“Of course,” he said, "you may have newspapers if you will;
I myself always have them: though in general they are too full
of public events to be of much interest. I was merely speaking
just now of the spirit of the movement. And of that we must
all of us here have some knowledge. We must all of us have
friends whose houses more or less embody it.
And even if we
had not, we could not help seeing signs of it-signs of how true
and earnest it is, in the enormous sums that are now given for
really good objects. ”
>>>
(


## p. 9630 (#38) ############################################

9630
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
-
((
“That,” said Lady Grace, with some tartness, “is true enough,
thank God! ”
“But I can't see,” said Lady Ambrose, whose name often
figured in the Times, in the subscription lists of advertised chari-
ties,— «I can't see, Mr. Rose, any reason in that why we should
not read the newspapers. ”
« The other day, for instance,” said Mr. Rose reflectively,
“I heard of eight Chelsea shepherdesses picked up by a dealer.
I really forget where,- in some common cottage, if I recollect
aright, covered with dirt, giving no pleasure to any one, - and
these were all sold in a single day, and not one of them fetched
less than two hundred and twenty pounds. ”
"I can't help thinking they must have come from Cremorne,”
said Mrs. Sinclair softly.
“But why,” said Mr. Rose, "should I speak of particular
instances ? We must all of us have friends whose houses are
full of priceless treasures such as these; the whole atmosphere of
whose rooms really seems impregnated with art, — seems, in fact,
Mr. Herbert, such an atmosphere as we should dream of for our
New Republic. "
« To be sure,” exclaimed Lady Ambrose, feeling that she
had at last got upon solid ground. By the way, Mr. Rose,
"”
she said with her most gracious of smiles, “I suppose you have
hardly seen Lady Julia Hayman's new house in Belgrave Square ?
I'm sure that would delight you. I should like to take you there
some day and show it to you. "
"I have seen it,” said Mr. Rose with languid condescension.
“It was very pretty, I thought, — some of it really quite nice. »
This, and the slight rudeness of manner it was said with,
raised Mr. Rose greatly in Lady Ambrose's estimation, and she
began to think with respect of his late utterances.
"Well, Mr. Herbert,” Mr. Rose went on, “what I want to
say is this: We have here in the present age, as it is, fragments
of the right thing. We have a number of isolated right interiors;
we have a few, very few, right exteriors. But in our ideal State,
a
our entire city—our London, the metropolis of our society –
would be as a whole perfect as these fragments. Taste would
not there be merely an indoor thing. It would be written visi-
bly for all to look upon, in our streets, our squares, our gardens.
Could we only mold England to our wishes, the thing to do, I
am persuaded, would be to remove London to some kindlier site,
-


## p. 9631 (#39) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9631
»
(c
that it might there be altogether born anew. I myself would
have it taken to the southwest, and to the sea-coast, where the
waves are blue, and where the air is calm and fine, and there — »
"Ah me! ” sighed Mr. Luke with a lofty sadness, cælum non
animam mutant. "
« Pardon me,” said Mr. Rose: “few paradoxes — and most para-
doxes are false — are, I think, so false as that. This much at
least of sea-like man's mind has: that scarcely anything so dis-
tinctly gives a tone to it as the color of the skies he lives under.
And I was going to say,” he went on, looking out dreamily
towards the evening waves, “that as the imagination is a quick
«
workman, I can at this moment see our metropolis already trans-
planted and rebuilt. I seem to see it now as it were from a
distance, with its palaces, its museums, its churches, its convents,
its gardens, its picture galleries,- a cluster of domed and pillared
marble, sparkling on a gray headland. It is Rome, it is Athens,
it is Florence, arisen and come to life again, in these modern
days. The aloe-tree of beauty again blossoms there, under the
azure stainless sky. ”
“Do you know, Mr. Rose,” said Lady Ambrose in her most
cordial manner, "all this is very beautiful; and certainly no one
can think London as it is more ugly than I do. That's natural
in me, isn't it, being a denizen of poor prosaic South Audley
Street as I am ? But don't you think that your notion is-
it's very beautiful, I quite feel that — but don't you think it is
perhaps a little too dream-like – too unreal, if you know what I
mean? ”
"Such a city,” said Mr. Rose earnestly, is indeed a dream;
but it is a dream which we might make a reality, would circum-
stances only permit of it. We have many amongst us who know
what is beautiful, and who passionately desire it; and would
others only be led by these, it is quite conceivable that we might
some day have a capital, the entire aspect of which should be
the visible embodiment of our finest and most varied culture, our
most sensitive taste, and our deepest æsthetic measure of things.
This is what this capital of our New Republic must be, this
dwelling-place of our ideal society. We shall have houses, gal-
leries, streets, theatres, such as Giulio Romano or Giorgio Vasari
or Giulio Campi would have rejoiced to look at; we shall have
metal-work worthy of the hand of Ghiberti and the praise of
Michel Angelo; we shall rival Domenico Beccafumi with
pavements. As you wander through our thoroughfares and our
our


## p. 9632 (#40) ############################################

9632
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
gardens, your feelings will not be jarred by the presence of
human vulgarity, or the desolating noise of traffic; nor in every
spare space will your eyes be caught by abominable advertise-
ments of excursion trains to Brighton, or of Horniman's cheap
tea. They will rest instead, here on an exquisite fountain, here
on a statue, here on a bust of Zeus or Hermes or Aphrodite,
glimmering in a laureled nook; or on a Mater Dolorosa looking
down on you from her holy shrine; or on the carved marble
gate-posts of our palace gardens, or on their wrought-iron or
wrought-bronze gates; or perhaps on such triumphal arches as
that which Antonio San Gallo constructed in honor of Charles V. ,
and of which you must all remember the description given by
Vasari. Such a city,” said Mr. Rose, would be the externaliza-
tion of the human spirit in the highest state of development that
we can conceive for it. We should there see expressed openly
all our appreciations of all the beauty that we can detect in the
world's whole history. The wind of the spirit that breathed
there would blow to us from all the places of the past, and be
charged with infinite odors. Every frieze on
Every frieze on our walls, every
clustered capital of a marble column, would be a garland or nose-
gay of associations. Indeed, our whole city, as compared with
the London that is now, would be itself a nosegay as compared
with a faggot; and as related to the life that I would see lived
in it, it would be like a shell murmuring with all the world's
memories, and held to the ear of the two twins Life and Love. "
Mr. Rose had got so dreamy by this time that he felt him-
self the necessity of turning a little more matter-of-fact again.
« You will see what I mean, plainly enough,” he said, “if you
will just think of our architecture, and consider how that natur-
ally will be
“Yes,” said Mr. Luke, "I should be glad to hear about our
architecture. ”
« — how that naturally will be,” Mr. Rose went on, "of no
style in particular. ”
The deuce it won't! ” exclaimed Mr. Luke.
“No,” continued Mr. Rose unmoved; “no style in particular,
but a renaissance of all styles. It will matter nothing to us
whether they be pagan or Catholic, classical or mediæval. We
shall be quite without prejudice or bigotry. To the eye of true
taste, an Aquinas in his cell before a crucifix, or a Narcissus
gazing at himself in a still fountain, are — in their own ways,
you know - equally beautiful. ”
(
>


## p. 9633 (#41) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9633
«Well, really,” said Miss Merton, “I can not fancy St. Thomas
being a very taking object to people who don't believe in him
either as a saint or a philosopher. I always think that except
from a Christian point of view, a saint can be hardly better de-
scribed than by Newman's lines, as-
(A bundle of bones, whose breath
Infects the world before his death. ) »*
"I remember the lines well,” said Mr. Rose calmly, “and the
writer you mention puts them in the mouth of a yelping devil.
But devils, as far as I know, are not generally — except perhaps
Milton's - conspicuous for taste; indeed, if we may trust Goethe,
the very touch of a flower is torture to them. ”
“Dante's biggest devil,” cried Mr. Saunders, to everyone's
amazement, "chewed Judas Iscariot like a quid of tobacco, to all
eternity. He, at any rate, knew what he liked. ”
Mr. Rose started, and visited Mr. Saunders with a rapid
frown. He then proceeded, turning again to Miss Merton as if
nothing had happened.
"Let me rather,” he said, “read a nice sonnet to you, which
I had sent to me this morning, and which was in my mind
just now. These lines ” (Mr. Rose here produced a paper from
his pocket) “were written by a boy of eighteen,-a youth of
extraordinary promise, I think,— whose education I may myself
claim to have had some share in directing Listen,” he said,
laying the verses before him on a clean plate.
»
« Three visions in the watches of one night
Made sweet my sleep - almost too sweet to tell.
One was Narcissus by a woodside well,
And on the moss his limbs and feet were white;
And one, Queen Venus, blown for my delight
Across the blue sea in a rosy shell;
And one, a lean Aquinas in his cell,
Kneeling, his pen in hand, with aching sight
Strained towards a carven Christ: and of these three
I knew not which was fairest. First I turned
Towards that soft boy, who laughed and fled from me;
Towards Venus then, and she smiled once, and she
Fled also. Then with teeming heart I yearned,
O Angel of the Schools, towards Christ with thee! »
* Vide J. H. Newman's Dream of Gerontius. )
XVII-603


## p. 9634 (#42) ############################################

9634
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
(
(
c
(
“Yes," murmured Mr. Rose to himself, folding up the paper,
“they are dear lines. Now there,” he said, we have a true and
tender expression of the really catholic spirit of modern æstheti-
cism, which holds nothing common or unclean. It is in this
spirit, I say, that the architects of our State will set to work.
And thus for our houses, for our picture galleries, for our
churches, -I trust we shall have many churches, - they will
,
select and combine - »
"Do you seriously mean,” broke in Allen a little impatiently,
" that it is a thing to wish for and to look forward to, that we
should abandon all attempts at original architecture, and content
ourselves with simply sponging on the past ? ”
"I do,” replied Mr. Rose suavely; "and for this reason, if
;
for no other, - that the world can now successfully do nothing
else. Nor indeed is it to be expected, or even wished, that it
should. ”
“You say we have no good architecture now! ” exclaimed
Lady Ambrose; “but, Mr. Rose, have you forgotten our modern
churches ?
Don't you think them beautiful ? Perhaps you never
go to All Saints'? »
"I every now and then," said Mr. Rose, “when I am in the
weary mood for it, attend the services of our English Ritualists,
and I admire their churches very much indeed. In some places
the whole thing is really managed with surprising skill. The
dim religious twilight, fragrant with the smoke of incense; the
tangled roofs that the music seems to cling to; the tapers, the
high altar, and the strange intonation of the priests,- all produce
a curious old-world effect, and seem to unite one with things that
have been long dead. Indeed, it all seems to me far more a
part of the past than the services of the Catholics. "
Lady Ambrose did not express her approbation of the last
part of this sentiment, out of regard for Miss Merton; but she
gave a smile and a nod of pleased intelligence to Mr. Rose.
“Yes,” Mr. Rose went on, “there is a regretful insincerity
about it all, that is very nice, and that at once appeals to me,
Gleich einer alten halbverklungnen Sage. )* The priests are
(
only half in earnest; the congregations even -
Then I am quite sure,” interrupted Lady Ambrose with
vigor, "that you can never have heard Mr. Cope preach. ”
>
*«Like some old half-forgotten legend. ”


## p. 9635 (#43) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9635
»
-
“I don't know," said Mr. Rose languidly. "I never inquired,
nor have I ever heard any one so much as mention, the names
of any of them. Now all that, Lady Ambrose, were life really
in the state it should be, you would be able to keep. ”
“Do you seriously, and in sober earnest, mean," Allen again
broke in, “that you think it a good thing that all our art and
architecture should be borrowed and insincere, and that our very
religion should be nothing but a dilettante memory? ”
« The opinion,” said Mr. Rose, - "which by the way you
slightly misrepresent, — is not mine only, but that of all those
of our own day who are really devoting themselves to art for
its own sake. I will try to explain the reason of this. In the
world's life, just as in the life of a man, there are certain peri-
ods of eager and all-absorbing action, and these are followed by
periods of memory and reflection. We then look back upon
our past and become for the first time conscious of what we
are, and of what we have done. We then see the dignity of
toil, and the grand results of it; the beauty and the strength
of faith, and the fervent power of patriotism: which whilst we
labored, and believed, and loved, we were quite blind to. Upon
such a reflective period has the world now entered. It has acted
and believed already: its task now is to learn to value action
and belief, to feel and to be thrilled at the beauty of them. And
the chief means by which it can learn this is art; the art of a
renaissance. For by the power of such art, all that was beauti-
ful, strong, heroic, or tender in the past, — all the actions, pas-
sions, faiths, aspirations of the world, that lie so many fathom
deep in the years,- float upward to the tranquil surface of the
present, and make our lives like what seems to me one of the
loveliest things in nature, the iridescent film on the face of a
stagnant water. Yes; the past is not dead unless we choose that
it shall be so. Christianity itself is not dead. There is nothing
of it that doth fade,' but turns into something rich and strange,'
for us to give a new tone to our lives with. And believe me,”
Mr. Rose went on, gathering earnestness, that the happiness
possible in such conscious periods is the only true happiness.
Indeed, the active periods of the world were not really happy at
all. We only fancy them to have been so by a pathetic fallacy.
Is the hero happy during his heroism ? No, but after it, when
he sees what his heroism was, and reads the glory of it in the
eyes of youth or maiden. ”


## p. 9636 (#44) ############################################

9636
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
>
>
(
"All this is very poor stuff very poor stuff,” murmured Dr.
Jenkinson, whose face had become gradually the very picture of
crossness,
"Do you mean, Mr. Rose,” said Miss Merton, with a half
humorous, half incredulous smile, that we never value religion
till we have come to think it nonsense ? »
« Not nonsense - no,” exclaimed Mr. Rose in gentle horror;
"I only mean that it never lights our lives so beautifully as
when it is leaving them like the evening sun. It is in such
periods of the world's life that art springs into being in its
greatest splendor. Your Raphael, Miss Merton, who painted you
your dear Madonnas,' was a luminous cloud in the sunset sky
of the Renaissance,- a cloud that took its fire from a faith that
was sunk or sinking. ”
“I'm afraid that the faith is not quite sunk yet,” said Miss
Merton, with a slight sudden Aush in her cheeks, and with just
the faintest touch of suppressed anger.
Mr. Saunders, Mr. Stockton, Mr. Storks, and Mr. Luke all
raised their eyebrows.
"No," said Mr. Rose, such cyclic sunsets are happily apt to
linger. ”
“Mr. Rose,” exclaimed Lady Ambrose, with her most gracious
of smiles, of course every one who has ears must know that all
this is very beautiful; but I am positively so stupid that I haven't
been quite able to follow it all. ”
"I will try to make my meaning clearer,” he said, in a
brisker tone. "I often figure to myself an unconscious period
and a conscious one, as two women: one an untamed creature
with embrowned limbs, native to the air and the sea; the other
marble-white and swan-soft, couched delicately on cushions be-
fore a mirror, and watching her own supple reflection gleaming
in the depths of it. On the one is the sunshine and the sea
spray.
The wind of heaven and her unbound hair are play-
mates. The light of the sky is in her eyes; on her lips is a free
laughter. We look at her, and we know that she is happy.
Ile know it, mark me; but she knows it not. Turn, however,
to the other, and all is changed. Outwardly, there is no gladness
there. Her dark, gleaming eyes open depth within depth upon
us, like the circles of a new Inferno. There is a clear, shadowy
pallor on her cheek. Only her lips are scarlet. There is a sad-
ness, a languor,- even in the grave tendrils of her heavy hair,
(
>


## p. 9637 (#45) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9637
(C
and in each changing curve of her bosom as she breathes or
sighs. ”
“What a very odd man Mr. Rose is! ” said Lady Ambrose in
a loud whisper. "He always seems to talk of everybody as if
they had no clothes on. And does he mean by this that we
ought to be always in the dumps ? "
“Yes,” Mr. Rose was meanwhile proceeding, his voice again
growing visionary, there is no eagerness, no action there: and
yet all eagerness, all action is known to her as the writing on
an open scroll; only, as she reads, even in the reading of it,
action turns into emotion and eagerness into a sighing memory.
Yet such a woman really may stand symbolically for us as the
patroness and the lady of all gladness, who makes us glad in
the only way now left us. And not only in the only way, but in
the best way - the way of ways. Her secret is self-consciousness.
She knows that she is fair; she knows, too, that she is sad: but
she sees that sadness is lovely, and so sadness turns to joy. Such
a woman may be taken as a symbol, not of our architecture only,
but of all the æsthetic surroundings with which we shall shelter
and express our life. Such a woman do I see whenever I enter
a ritualistic church
"I know,” said Mrs. Sinclair, “that very peculiar people do go
to such places; but, Mr. Rose,” she said with a look of appealing
inquiry, "I thought they were generally rather overdressed than
otherwise ? »
« The imagination,” said Mr. Rose, opening his eyes in grave
wonder at Mrs. Sinclair, “may give her what garb it chooses.
Our whole city, then — the city of our New Republic - will be in
keeping with this spirit. It will be the architectural and decorat-
ive embodiment of the most educated longings of our own times
after order and loveliness and delight, whether of the senses or
the imagination. It will be, as it were, a resurrection of the
past, in response to the longing and the passionate regret of
the present. It will be such a resurrection as took place in Italy
during its greatest epoch, only with this difference - »
“You seem to have forgotten trade and business altogether,
said Dr. Jenkinson. "I think, however rich you intend to be,
you will find that they are necessary. ”
“Yes, Mr. Rose, you're not going to deprive us of all our
shops, I hope ? ” said Lady Ambrose.
>
>
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WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
(C
“Because, you know,” said Mrs. Sinclair with a soft mali-
ciousness, “we can't go without dresses altogether, Mr. Rose.
And if I were there,” she continued plaintively, "I should want
a bookseller to publish the scraps of verse poetry, as I am
pleased to call it — that I am always writing. ”
"Pooh! ” said Mr. Rose, a little annoyed, "we shall have all
that somewhere, of course; but it will be out of the way, in a
sort of Piræus, where the necessary rány 20. —”
“A sort of what ? ” said Lady Ambrose.
“Mr. Rose merely means,” said Donald Gordon, “that there
must be good folding-doors between the offices and the house of
life, and that the servants are not to be seen walking about in
the pleasure-grounds. ”
“Yes,” said Mr. Rose, “exactly so. ”
“Well, then,” said Lady Ambrose, “I quite agree with you,
Mr. Rose; and if wishing were only having, I've not the least
doubt that we should all of us be going back to Mr. Rose's
city to-morrow, instead of to London, with its carts, and cabs,
and smoke, and all its thousand-and-one drawbacks. I'm sure,”
she said, turning to Miss Merton, you would, my dear, with all
your taste. ”
"It certainly,” said Miss Merton smiling, "all sounds very
beautiful. All that I am afraid of is, that we should not be
quite worthy of it. ”
"Nay,” said Mr. Rose, “but the very point is that we shall
be worthy of it, and that it will be worthy of us. I said, if you
recollect, just now, that the world's ideal of the future must
resemble in many ways its memory of the Italian Renaissance.
But don't let that mislead you. It may resemble that, but it
will be something far in advance of it. During the last three
hundred years - in fact, during the last sixty or seventy years --
the soul of man has developed strangely in its sentiments and its
powers of feeling; in its powers, in fact, of enjoying life. As I
said, I have a work in the press devoted entirely to a description
of this growth. I have some of the proof-sheets with me; and
if you will let me, I should like to read
you one
or two pas-
sages. ”
"I don't think much can be made out of that,” said Dr. Jen-
kinson, with a vindictive sweetness. Human sentiment dresses
itself in different fashions, as human ladies do; but I think


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WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9639
>
beneath the surface it is much the same.
I mean,
» he added,
suddenly recollecting that he might thus seem to be rooting up
the wheat of his own opinions along with the tares of Mr.
Rose's, “I mean that I don't think in seventy years, or even in
three hundred, you will be able to show that human nature has
very much changed. I don't think so. ”
Unfortunately, however, the Doctor found that instead of put-
ting down Mr. Rose by this, he had only raised up Mr. Luke.
"Ah, Jenkinson, I think you are wrong there,” said Mr. Luke.
“As long as we recognize that this growth is at present confined
to a very small minority, the fact of such growth is the most
important, the most significant of all facts. Indeed, our friend
Mr. Rose is quite right thus far, in the stress he lays on our
appreciation of the past: that we have certainly in these modern
times acquired a new sense, by which alone the past can be
appreciated truly,the sense which, if I may invent a phrase
for it, I should call that of Historical Perspective; so that now
really for the first time the landscape of history is beginning to
have some intelligible charm for us. And this, you know, is not
all.
Our whole views of things (you, Jenkinson, must know this
as well as I do) — the Zeitgeist breathes upon them, and they do
not die; but they are changed, they are enlightened. ”
The Doctor was too much annoyed to make any audible
answer to this; but he murmured with some emphasis to him-
self, “That's not what Mr. Rose was saying; that's not what I
was contradicting. ”
"You take, Luke, a rather more rose-colored view of things
than you did last night,” said Mr. Storks.
"No," said Mr. Luke with a sigh, “far from it. I am not
denying (pray, Jenkinson, remember this) that the majority of
us are at present either Barbarians or Philistines; and the ugli.
ness of these is more glaring now than at any former time. But
that any of us are able to see them thus distinctly in their true
colors itself shows that there must be a deal of light somewhere.
Even to make darkness visible some light is needed. We should
always recollect that. We are only discontented with ourselves
when we are struggling to be better than ourselves. ”
"And in many ways,” said Laurence, "I think the strug-
gle has been successful. Take for instance the pleasure we get
now from the aspects of external nature, and the way in which
these seem to mix themselves with our lives. This certainly is
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WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
something distinctly modern. And nearly all our other feel.
ings, it seems to me, have changed just like this one, and have
become more sensitive and more highly organized.
If we may
judge by its expression in literature, love has, certainly; and that,
I suppose, is the most important and comprehensive feeling in
life. ”
“Does Mr. Laurence only suppose that? ” sighed Mrs. Sinclair,
casting down her eyes.
“ "Well,” said Dr. Jenkinson, "our feelings about these two
things about love and external nature — perhaps have changed
—
somewhat. Yes, I think they have. I think you might make an
interesting magazine article out of that -- but hardly more. ”
"I rather,” said Laurence apologetically, "agree with Mr.
Luke and Mr. Rose, that all our feelings have developed just as
these two have. And I think this is partly owing to the fusion
in our minds of our sacred and secular ideas; which indeed
you were speaking of this morning in your sermon. Thus, to
find some rational purpose in life was once merely enjoined as a
supernatural duty. In our times it has taken our common nature
upon it, and become a natural longing — though I fear,” he added
softly, “a fruitless one. ”
“Yes,” suddenly exclaimed Lady Grace, who had been listen-
ing intently to her nephew's words; "and if you are speaking of
modern progress, Otho, you should not leave out the diffusion of
those grand ideas of justice and right and freedom and humanity
which are at work in the great heart of the nation.
We are
growing cultivated in Mr. Luke's noble sense of the word; and
our whole hearts revolt against the way in which women have
hitherto been treated, and against the cruelties which dogma
asserts the good God can practice, and the cruelties on the
poor animals which wicked men do practice. And war too,”
Lady Grace went on, a glow mounting into her soft faded
check: “think how fast we are outgrowing that! England at
any rate will never watch the outbreak of another war, with all
its inevitable cruelties, without giving at least one sob that shall
make all Europe pause and listen. Indeed, we must not forget
how the entire substance of religion is ceasing to be a mass of
dogmas, and is becoming embodied instead in practice and in
action.
"Quite true, Lady Grace,” said Mr. Luke. Lady Grace was
just about to have given a sign for rising; but Mr. Luke's assent
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WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9641
»
((
»
(
detained her. "As to war," he went on, “there may of course
be different opinions,- questions of policy may arise: » (“As if
any policy,” murmured Lady Grace, could justify us in such a
thing! ”) «but religion -- yes, that, as I have been trying to teach
the world, is the great and important point on which culture is
beginning to cast its light; and with just the effect which you
describe. It is true that culture is at present but a little leaven
hid in a barrel of meal: but still it is doing its work slowly; and
in the matter of religion,-indeed, in all matters, for religion
rightly understood embraces all, -- " ("I do like to hear Mr. Luke
talk sometimes, murmured Lady Grace,) "its effect is just this:
to show us that religion in any civilized, any reasonable, any
sweet sense, can never be found except embodied in action; that
it is in fact nothing but right action, pointed — winged, as it
were— by right emotion, by a glow, an aspiration, an aspiration
toward God” (Lady Grace sighed with feeling) “not, of course,”
Mr. Luke went on confidentially, "that petulant Pedant of the
theologians, that irritable angry Father with the very uncertain
temper, but toward — »
“An infinite, inscrutable, loving Being,” began Lady Grace,
with a slight moisture in her eyes.
"Quite so," said Mr. Luke, not waiting to listen: towards
that great Law, that great verifiable tendency of things, that
great stream whose flowing such of us as are able are now so
anxiously trying to accelerate. There is no vain speculation
about creation and first causes and consciousness here; which are
matters we can never verify, and which matter nothing to us. ”
"But,” stammered Lady Grace aghast, Mr. Luke, do you
mean to say that? But it surely must matter something whether
God can hear our prayers, and will help us, and whether we owe
him any duty, and whether he is conscious of what we do, and
will judge us: it must matter. "
Mr. Luke leaned forward towards Lady Grace and spoke to
her in a confidential whisper.
“Not two straws- not that,” he said, with a smile, and a very
slight fillip of his finger and thumb.