Part 13

I take it, therefore, as now established, that A in its entirety is not later than 2012 and probably as early as 2006. Upon W I cannot yet profess to have arrived at a decision, but I incline to put it at about forty years later, while [Greek: theta] (which includes most of the doggerel and is manifestly in another style, and from another hand) is admitted to be at least a generation later than "W" itself.

In a further paper I shall discuss the much-disputed point of authorship, and I shall attempt to show that Belloc, though the subject of numerous accretions, was a real historical figure, and that the author of A may even have worked upon fragments preserved by oral tradition from the actual conversation of that character.

That is how the damned fools write: and with brains of that standard Germans ask me to deny my God.

XXXV

THE FANATIC

"I asked Old Biggs (as the Duke of Racton used to be called) what he thought of Charlie Wilson. Old Biggs answered, 'Man like that's one of two things: a _Fan_atic or a Fa_nat_ic.' I thought this very funny."--_St. Germans Sporting Memoirs_, Vol. II, p. 186.

This is a kind of man whom we all love and yet all desire to moderate. He is excessive only in good, but his excess therein is dangerous. He proceeds from less to more; first irritated, then exasperated, then mad. He will not tolerate the necessary foibles of mankind. No, nor even their misunderstandings. He himself commonly takes refuge in some vice or other, but a small one, and from this bastion defends himself against all comers.

The Fanatic will exaggerate the operations of war. If it be necessary in the conquest of a province to murder certain women, he will cry shame blindly, without consideration of martial conditions or remembrance that what we do in war is absolved by indemnities thereafter following. It is the same with the death of children in warfare, whether these be starved to death in concentration camps or more humanely spitted, or thrown down wells, or dealt with in some other fashion, such as the braining of them against walls and gateposts: nothing will suit the Fanatic in these matters but a complete and absolute abstention from them, without regard to strategy or tactics or any other part of military science. Now many a man shall argue against practices of one sort or another, as against excesses. But the Fanatic is nothing so reasonable, being bound by a law of his nature or rather a lack of law, to violent outburst with no restraint upon it, and to impotent gnashings.

It is so also in affairs of State when peace reigns, for the Fanatic is for ever denouncing what all men know must be and making of common happenings an uncommon crime. Thus, when a minister shall borrow of a money-lender certain sums which this last generously puts before him without condition or expense, what must your Fanatic do, but poke and pry into the whole circumstance, and when the usurer has his just reward, and is made a Peer to settle our laws for us, the Fanatic will go vainly about from one newspaper to another seeking which shall print his foolish "protest" (as he calls it). Mark you also that the Fanatic is quite indifferent to this: that his foolishness is of no effect. He will roar in an empty field as loud as any bull and challenge all men to meet him, and seems well pleased whether they come or no.

It is of the fanatical temper to regard some few men as heroes, or demigods, and then again, these having failed in something, to revile them damnably. Thus by the old religious sort you will find the Twelve Apostles in the Gospel very foolishly revered and made much of as though they were so many Idols, but let one of these (Judas to wit) show statesmanship and a manly sense, and Lord! how the Fanatic does rail at him!

So it is also with foreign nations. The Fanatic has no measure there and speaks of them as though they were his province, seeing that it is of his essence never to comprehend diversity of circumstance or measure. Thus our cousins oversea will very properly burn alive the negroes that infest them in those parts, and their children and young people will, when the negro has been thus despatched, collect his bones or charred clothing to keep the same in their collections, which later they compare one with another. This is their business not ours, and has proved in the effect of great value to their commonwealth. But the Fanatic will have none of it. To hear him talk you might imagine himself a negro or one that had in his own flesh tasted the fire, and in his rage he will blame one man and another quite indiscriminately: now the good President of these people (Mr. Roosevelt as he once was), now the humble instrument of justice who should have put a match to the African. And all this without the least consideration of those surrounding things and haps which made such dealing with negroes a very necessary thing.

There is nothing workable or of purpose in what this man does. He is for ever quarrelling with other men for their lack of time or memory or even courtesy to himself, for on this point he is very tender. He wearies men with repeating to them their own negotiations, as though these were in some way disgraceful. Thus if a man has taken a sum of money in order to write of the less pleasing characters of his mother; or if he has sold his vote in Parliament, or if he has become for his own good reasons the servant of some one wealthier than he, or if he has seen fit to deal with the enemies of his country, the Fanatic will blurt out and blare such a man's considered action, hoping, it would seem, to have some support in his mere raving at it. But this he never gets, for mankind in the lump is too weighty and reasonable to accept any such wildness.

There is no curing the Fanatic, neither with offers of Money nor with blows, nor is there any method whatsoever of silencing him, save imprisonment, which, in this country, is the method most commonly taken. But in the main there is no need to act so violently by him, seeing that all men laugh at him for a fool and that he will have no man at his side. Commonly, he is of no effect at all, and we may remain his friend though much contemptuous of him, since contempt troubles him not at all. But there are moments, and notably in the doubt of a war, when the Fanatic may do great ill indeed. Then it is men's business to have him out at once and if necessary to put him to death, but whether by beheading, by hanging, or by crucifixion it is for sober judges to decide.

The Irish are very fanatical, and have driven from their country many landlords formerly wealthy who were the support and mainstay of all the island. It may be seen in Ireland how fanaticism can impoverish. Upon the other hand, the people of the Mile End Road and round by the north into Hackney Downs and so southward and westward into the City of London by Houndsditch are not fanatical at all, and enjoy for their reward an abounding prosperity.

XXXVI

A LEADING ARTICLE

After the failure of the numerous conferences which have been held between Charles Stuart and the Commissioners of Parliament, and after a trial in Westminster Hall the incidents of which it would be painful to recall, the Court appointed for the purpose has reached a conclusion with which we think the mass of Englishmen will, however reluctantly, agree. The courtesy and good feeling upon which we pride ourselves in our political life seem to have been strangely forgotten during the controversies of the last few months. It would be invidious to name particular instances, and we readily admit that the circumstances were abnormal. Feeling ran high, and with Englishmen at least, who are accustomed to call a spade a spade, strong words will follow upon strong emotions; but we can hope that the final decision of the Court will have put behind us for ever one of the most critical periods of discussion, with all its deplorable excesses and wild and whirling words, which we can remember in modern times.

Upon the principle of the conclusion to which the Court has come there is a virtual unanimity. Men as different as Colonel Harrison on the one hand and Mr. Justice Bradshaw on the other, Mr. Cromwell--whom surely all agree in regarding as a representative Englishman--and that very different character, Mr. Ireton, whom we do not always agree with, but who certainly stands for a great section of opinion, are at one upon a policy which has received no serious criticism, and recommends itself even to such various social types as the blunt soldier, Colonel Pride, and the refined aristocrat, Lord Grey of Groby.

But though a matter of such supreme importance to the mass of the people, a measure which it is acknowledged will bring joy to the joyless, light to those who sit in darkness, and a new hope in their old age to fifteen millions of British working men and women, may be unanimously agreed to in principle, it is unfortunately possible to defeat even so beneficent a measure by tactics of delay and by a prolonged criticism upon detail. The Government have therefore, in our opinion, acted wisely in determining to proceed with due expedition to the execution of Charles Stuart, and we do not anticipate any such resistance, even partial and sporadic, as certain rash freelances of politics have prophesied. There was indeed some time ago some doubt as to the success of a policy to which the Government was pledged, and in spite of the strong and disciplined majority which they commanded in the House, in spite of the fact that the House was actually unanimous upon the general lines of that policy, many people up and down the country, who did not fully comprehend it, had been led to act rashly and even riotously against its proposals. All that we may fairly say is now over, and we trust that the Government will have the firmness to go forward with a piece of work in which it now undoubtedly has the support of every class of society.

We should be the last to deny the importance of meeting any serious objection in detail that still remains. Thus the inhabitants of Charing Cross have a legitimate grievance when they say that the scene of the execution will be hidden from them by the brick building which stands at the northern end of Whitehall, but they must remember that all practical measures involve compromise and that if their point of view alone had been considered and the scaffold were to be erected upon the north of that annex, the crowd for which the Home Secretary has made such wise provision by the erection of strong temporary barriers in the Court of the Palace would have no chance of attending at the ceremony.

We confess that the more serious point seems to us to arise on the Bishop of London's suggestion that only the clergy of the Established Church should be present upon the platform, and we very much fear that this pretension--in our view a very narrow and contemptible one--will receive the support of that large number of our fellow citizens which is still attached to the Episcopal forms of Christianity. But we take leave to remind them, and the Bishop of London himself, that the present moment, when the Free Churches have so fully vindicated their rights to public recognition, is hardly one in which it is decent to press these old-fashioned claims of privilege.

There is a third matter which we cannot conclude without mentioning: we refer to the attitude of Charles Stuart himself. While the matter was still _sub judice_ we purposely refrained from making any comment, as is the laudable custom, we are glad to say, in the country. But now the sentence has been pronounced we think it our duty to protest against the attitude of Charles Stuart during the last scene of this momentous political controversy. He is too much of an English gentleman and statesman to exaggerate the significance of our criticism, or to fail to understand the spirit in which it is offered, for that is entirely friendly, but he must surely recognise by this time, that such petty ebullitions of temper as he exhibited in refusing to plead and in wearing his hat in the presence of men of such eminence as Mr. Justice Bradshaw were unworthy of him and of the great cause which he represents. He would have done well to take a lesson from the humble tipstaff of the Court, who, though not required to do so by the Judges, instantly removed his cap when they appeared and only put it on again when he was conducting the prisoner back after the rising of Court.

Finally, we hope that all those who have been permitted by the Home Secretary to be present at Whitehall upon next Tuesday will remember our national reputation for sobriety and judgment in great affairs of the State, and will be guilty of nothing that might make it necessary for the Government to use severe measures utterly repugnant to the spirit of English liberty.

XXXVII

THE OBITUARY NOTICE

Mr. Herod, whose death has just been announced by a telegram from Lyons, was one of the most striking and forceful personalities of our time.

By birth he was a Syrian Jew, suffering from the prejudice attaching to such an origin, and apparently with little prospect of achieving the great place which he did achieve in the eager life of our generation.

But his indomitable energy and his vast comprehension of men permitted him before the close of his long and useful life to impress himself upon his contemporaries as very few even of the greatest have done.

Our late beloved sovereign, Tiberius, perhaps the keenest judge of men in the whole Empire, is said to have remarked one evening in the smoking-room to his guests, when Herod had but recently left the apartment: "Gentlemen, that man is the corner-stone of my Eastern policy," and the tone in which His Majesty expressed this opinion was, we may be sure, that not only of considered judgment, but of equally considered reverence and praise.

It is a striking testimony to Mr. Herod's character that while he was still quite unknown (save, of course, as the heir of his father) he mastered the Greek and Latin tongues, and we find in his diary the shrewd remark that as the first was necessary to culture, so was the second to statesmanship.

It would have been impossible to choose a more difficult moment than that in which the then unknown Oriental lad was entrusted by the Imperial Government with the task which he has so triumphantly accomplished. The Levant, as our readers know, presents problems of peculiar difficulty, and though we can hardly doubt that the free and democratic genius of our country would at last have solved them, we owe it to the memory of this remarkable personality that the solution of them should have been so triumphantly successful.

We will not here recapitulate the obscure and often petty intrigues which have combined to give the politics of Judæa and its neighbourhood a character of anarchy. It is enough to point out that when Mr. Herod was first entrusted with his mission the gravest doubts were entertained as to whether the cause of order could prevail. The finances of the province were in chaos, and that detestable masquerade of enthusiasm to which the Levantines are so deplorably addicted, especially on their "religious" side, had baffled every attempt to re-establish order.

Mr. Herod's father (to whom it will be remembered the Empire had entrusted the beginnings of this difficult business), though undoubtedly a great man, had incurred the hatred of all the worst and too powerful forces of disorder in the district. His stern sense of justice and his unflinching resolution in one of the last affairs of his life, when he had promulgated his epoch-making edict to regulate the infantile death-rate--a scientific measure grossly misunderstood and unfortunately resented by the populace--had left a peculiarly difficult inheritance to the son. The women of the lower classes (as is nearly always the case in these social reforms) proved the chief obstacle, and legends of the most fantastic character were--and still are--current in the slums of Tiberias with regard to Mr. Herod Senior. When, some years later, he was struggling with a painful disease which it needed all his magnificent strength of character to master, no sympathy was shown him by the provincials of the Tetrarchy, and, to their shame be it said, the professional and landed classes treasonably lent the weight of their influence to the disloyal side.

It was therefore under difficulties of no common order that Mr. A. Herod, the son, took over the administration of that far border province which, we fear, will cause more trouble before its unruly inhabitants are absorbed in the mass of our beneficent and tolerant imperial system.

As though his public functions were not burden enough for such young shoulders to bear, the statesman's private life was assailed in the meanest and most despicable fashion. His marriage with Mrs. Herodias Philip--to whose lifelong devotion and support Mr. Herod bore such beautiful witness in his dedication of _Stray Leaves from Galilee_--was dragged into the glare of publicity by the less reputable demagogues of the region, causing infinite pain and doing irreparable injury to a most united and sensitive family circle. The hand of the law fell heavily upon more than one of the slanderers, but the evil was done, and Mr. Herod's authority, in the remote country districts, especially, was grievously affected for some years.

Through all these manifold obstacles Mr. Herod found or drove a way, and finally achieved the position we all look back to with such gratitude and pride in the really dangerous crisis which will be fresh in our readers' memory. It required no ordinary skill to pilot the policy of the Empire through those stormy three days in Jerusalem, but Mr. Herod was equal to the task, and emerged from it permanently established in the respect and affection of the Roman people. It is a sufficient testimony to his tact and firmness on this occasion that he earned in that moment of danger the lasting friendship and regard of Sir Pontius Pilate, whose firmness of vision and judgment of men were inferior only to that of his lamented sovereign.

Unlike most non-Italians and natives generally, Mr. Herod was an excellent judge of horseflesh, and his stables upon Mount Carmel often carried to victory the colours--_rose tendre_--of "Sir Caius Gracchus," the _nom-de-guerre_ by which the statesman preferred to be known on the Turf.

Mr. Herod's æsthetic side was more highly developed than is commonly discovered in level-headed men of action. He personally supervised the architectural work in the rebuilding of Tiberias, and, of the lighter arts, was a judge of dramatic or "expressional" dancing.

During the earlier years of this eventful career Mr. Herod's life was greatly cheered and brightened by the companionship of his stepdaughter, Miss Salome Philip (now Lady Caiaphas), whose brilliant _salon_ so long adorned the Quirinal, and who--we are exceedingly glad to hear--has been entrusted with that labour of love, the editing of her stepfather's life, letters, and verses; for Mr. Herod was no mean poet, and we may look forward with pleasurable expectation to his hitherto unpublished elegiacs on the beautiful scenery of his native land.

By the provisions of Mr. Herod's will he is to be cremated, and the ceremony will take place on a pyre of cedar-wood in the Place Bellecour at Lyons.

XXXVIII

THE "MERRY ROME" COLUMN

A weekly feature of the _Carthaginian Messenger_, quoted from its issue of March 15, 220 B. C.

It is quite a pleasure to be in dear old Rome again after a week spent upon an important mission which your readers are already acquainted with, in the Tuscan country. All that drive through Etruria was very delightful and the investigation will undoubtedly prove of the greatest use. But what a difference it is to be back in the sparkle and gaiety of the Via Sacra. Every day one feels more and more how _real_ the entente is. Probably no nations have become faster friends than those who have learnt to respect each other in war, and though the Romans were compelled to accept our terms, and to undertake the difficult administration of Sicily with money furnished by the Carthaginian Government, all that was more than twenty years ago and the memory of it does not rankle now. Indeed, I think I may say that the Roman character is a peculiarly generous one in this regard. They know what a good fight is, and they enjoy it--none better--but when it is over no one is readier to shake hands and to make friends again than a Roman. I was talking it over with dear little Lucia Balba the other day and I thought she put it very prettily. She said:

Est autem amicitia nihil aliud, nisi omnium divinarum huminarumque rerum cockalorumque Romanorum et jejorum concinnatio!

Was it not charming?

Of course there is a little jealousy--no more than a pout!--about Hasdrubal's magnificent work in Spain, but every one recognises what a great man he is, and it was only yesterday that M. Catulus (the son of our fine old enemy Lutatius) said to me with a sigh: "The reason we Romans cannot do that kind of thing is because we cannot stick together. We are for ever fighting among ourselves. Just look at our history!" On the other hand, I can't think that our mixture of democracy and common sense would suit the Latin temperament, with its _verve_ and _nescio quid_, which make it at the same time so incalculable and so fascinating. Every nation must have its own advantages and drawbacks. We are a little too stolid, perhaps, and a little too businesslike, but our stolidity and our businesslike capacity have founded Colonies over the whole world and established a magnificent Empire. The Romans are a little too fond of "glory" and give way to sudden emotion in a fashion which seems to us perilously like weakness, but no one can deny that they have established a wonderfully methodical and orderly system of roads all over Italy, and that their capital is still the intellectual centre of the world.

Talking of that I ought to pay a tribute to the Roman home and to Roman thrift. We hear too much in our country of the Roman amphitheatre and all the rest of it. What many Carthaginians do not yet know is that the stay-at-home sober Roman is the backbone of the whole place. He hates war as heartily as we do, and though his forms of justice are very different from ours he is a sincere lover of right-dealing according to his lights. It is due to such men that Rome is, after ourselves, the chief financial power in the world.

But you will ask me for more interesting news than this sermon. Well! Well! I have plenty to give you. The Debates in the Senate are as brilliant and, I am afraid, as theatrical as usual. Certainly the Romans beat us at oratory. To hear Flaccus deliver a really great speech about the introduction of Greek manners is a thing one can never forget! Of course, it will seem to you in Carthage very unpractical and very "Roman," and it is true that that kind of thing doesn't make a nation great in the way we have become great, but it is wonderful stuff to hear all the same--and such a young man too! The Senate has, however, none of our ideas of order, and the marvel is how they get through their work at all. There are no Suffetes, and sometimes you will hear five or six men all talking at once and gesticulating in that laughable Italian fashion which our caricaturists find so valuable!