THE GRAND ASSIZE
 
 The Grand Assize 
 
 As Reported by a Humble Clerk 
 
 BY 
 HUGH CARTON ^5 
 
 "No man shall cry if I can help him." 
 
 LIGHT OF ASIA 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1914
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 
 DOTJBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE COURT 3 
 
 II. THE PLUTOCRAT 9 
 
 III. THE DERELICT 24 
 
 IV. LA GRANDE DAME 37 
 
 V. THE YELLOW PRESS 52 
 
 VI. THE PHILISTINE 65 
 
 VII. THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 79 
 
 VIII. THE AGITATOR 93 
 
 IX. THE ACTOR 107 
 
 X. CIRCE 120 
 
 XI. THE SENTIMENTALIST 134 
 
 XII. THE BOOKMAKER 147 
 
 XIII. THE PARASITE. 162 
 
 XIV. MEPHISTO 176 
 
 XV. THE DRUNKARD 188 
 
 XVI. MRS. GRUNDY 203 
 
 XVII. THE CLERIC 215 
 
 XVIII. THE PARTY POLITICIAN 231 
 
 XIX. LA CROUPIERE. ........ 246 
 
 XX. THE TRAITOR 1915 A.D 260 
 
 ENVOI 273 
 
 2134952
 
 THE GRAND ASSIZE
 
 The Grand Assize 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COURT 
 
 THE arrangements of the Court were simplicity 
 itself, and the Royal Arms were deemed unneces- 
 sary in view of the character of the Judge. Out 
 of respect for each defendant, whose trial was half con- 
 versational and partook of the nature of a private inter- 
 view, there were neither ushers, police, nor any other 
 indication of force. This was to avoid the horror of 
 exposure, which is apt to defeat its object namely, 
 the essential truth. Still more striking was the wisdom 
 which frustrated public curiosity and helped to minimise 
 the self-consciousness of the men and women whose 
 interests were at stake. 
 
 The dilemmas of each were treated with becoming 
 respect, which created a confidence impossible before a 
 crowd. The Judge had never at any time been seen by 
 the accused, though between them there had been a 
 mystic relationship often unacknowledged and, in most 
 instances, stoutly denied. The lack of formalism did 
 much to banish hypocrisy and perjury from the Court, 
 each prisoner being his own accuser and being impelled 
 
 3
 
 4 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. No 
 prosecutor painted his offence in lurid terms, but the 
 conscience of each was relied on to set forth his guilt. 
 Such thoughtfulness touched the oldest offenders, and 
 the coals of fire thus heaped on their heads burned them 
 into a purity so long trifled with that any save the 
 Judge would have regarded it as irrecoverable. 
 
 The absence of vindictiveness was a surprise to cul- 
 prits who had been accustomed to look on punishment as 
 an end in itself and had spent their lives in striving to 
 evade it. For years they had listened to truisms on the 
 subject, but, though they had often excused themselves 
 on the ground of inconsistency in those whose office it was 
 to rebuke them, they had as often resisted their own 
 conscience. They had found it a solace to remember 
 that, since all were in the same boat, the affair could not 
 be so desperate as alleged. The result was an admixture 
 of terror and flippancy, a poor preparation for their ulti- 
 mate trial, which completely differed from what they 
 had been led to expect. There was no suggestion of an 
 account to be settled, but the single aim of rectifying 
 things appeared to predominate, and none could help 
 subscribing to this or recognising its usefulness. The 
 fact was brought home to each that their summons 
 formed no portion of a cruel code, imposed by Omnipo- 
 tence on the helpless, but that it was part of their evo- 
 lution as designed by a beneficent Power. 
 
 The Judge's seat was on a level with that of the 
 prisoner, the intention being to put the latter at his ease, 
 though not for an instant could the most hardened have
 
 THE COURT 5 
 
 taken any advantage. No witnesses were called on be- 
 half of the accused, the counsel for the defence sum- 
 marising all that could be said in his favour, as alone 
 cognisant of the road which had led to the result. The 
 emptiness of the room created an awe greater than any 
 assembly could have inspired, yet, in spite of the silence, 
 there was a sense of hope uplifting from the slough of 
 despond. In short, the Court resembled a home, but 
 the chances of truth were increased by the change, con- 
 veying an impressive lesson as to how the heart may be 
 reached and human beings not so much driven as en- 
 ticed towards honesty. 
 
 None of the prisoners need have appeared for actual 
 judgment, and it should be made clear that only 
 the self-satisfied found themselves in the dock. Oppor- 
 tunities of anticipating such a crisis by judging them- 
 selves had been constantly offered, and it was only after 
 persistent refusal to make use of them that they were 
 brought up at the Grand Assize. This may best be 
 described under a metaphor familiar to those acquainted 
 with ordinary criminal proceedings. The option is 
 granted to many prisoners of being dealt with by the 
 Magistrate rather than run the risk of the Sessions, 
 which is virtually a gamble between liberty and a longer 
 sentence, let alone the intervening comfort of postpone- 
 ment. In the case of those who abide by the decision 
 of the Magistrate fear of further reprisals ceases just so 
 long as his conditions are complied with. Each, how- 
 ever, is liable to be called up again by the same Magis- 
 trate as occasion arises. To all who loyally work out the
 
 6 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 penalty assigned comes a peace beyond the understand- 
 ing of its possessors, but unknown to those who decline 
 the volunteered discipline. Others perpetually elude the 
 summons, and still more skip their bail, preferring to 
 chance a future which means less and less to them in pro- 
 portion as they despise it, rather than be thwarted in the 
 smallest detail. 
 
 The advocate for the prisoner was both strong and 
 tender, being filled with compassion for the position of 
 his client, and incarnating the special angel supposed to 
 wait on every individual born into the world. All 
 eloquence, save that of genuine pathos, was banished 
 from the Court, and language was no longer used as a 
 vehicle for distorting truth. For this reason the effect 
 of speech was tenfold in its intensity, based as it was on a 
 love which had never failed, and which could always find 
 gold in the clay, though at tunes the particles were ex- 
 tremely small. 
 
 When the Judge took his seat there was no disturbance, 
 and his entrance was hardly noticed. It seemed as 
 though he was waiting on the convenience of the ac- 
 cused, and as if his object was to show greater honour to 
 the parts of the body politic most requiring it. There 
 was no sense of superiority, nor did he fail to display that 
 respect for which ignominy thirsts. Everything about 
 him was more positive than negative, like one who, ac- 
 customed to the light, looks on darkness as its absence, 
 and endeavours to expel it by letting in the sun. There 
 was no beauty in his face to make him desirable, and if 
 aught about him might be called extraordinary, it was
 
 THE COURT 7 
 
 that he was ordinary. He might have been any age, 
 suggesting one who had grown old without ceasing to 
 be young, yet with lines in his face and a depth in his 
 eyes telling of an experience preventive of all surprise. 
 He had evidently himself been through the fire, and you 
 could be certain, before he spoke, that he was there not 
 to condemn but to cure. 
 
 The humility of this kind figure was apparent, and if 
 any had called him good, he would have been the first 
 to say that the attribute belonged to no one except God. 
 If credited with absolute knowledge, he would have con- 
 fessed ignorance as to the final arrangements of the Cre- 
 ator, but, if in this respect more was assigned to him 
 than he claimed, his love, at least, defied embellishment. 
 From time to time he expressed his sympathy by a smile, 
 nor was satire altogether absent, though it was employed 
 more in the cause of saving than of revenge. He was 
 at his best in his references to women and children, and 
 when the latter were mentioned his countenance was 
 irradiated with tenderness. His strongest desire was 
 the consolation of the unhappy, and the air of mercy 
 surrounding him was unspoiled by weakness. When he 
 spoke his voice was in itself a correction, but its music 
 brought comfort and hope, not only to the depressed but 
 to the disgraced. 
 
 You felt that he had drunk of the cup, though whether 
 on his own account or that of others none could guess. 
 So much indeed had he identified himself with man as 
 his brother that his talk was rather from the standpoint 
 of "we" than "I," nor did he give the idea of shunning
 
 8 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 the sinner, though his abhorrence of the sin was beyond 
 question. There was no trace of preaching in his methods, 
 nor did he once proclaim as news to the accused that it 
 was his own fault. He also made a point of not adding 
 to the agony, yet he achieved with infinite delicacy the 
 task of revealing each to himself. In his presence there 
 came an unexplained assurance that no skein but might 
 be unravelled, no tangle but might be straightened out, 
 no wrong but might be adjusted, no ruin but might be 
 restored, no vileness but might be purified, and no an- 
 guish but might be banished by this good Samaritan 
 who was strangely considerate to those who had fallen 
 by the way.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 
 
 THE dethroned puppet felt his position deeply, 
 and suffered keenly from the contrast of his 
 surroundings with those he had just left. He 
 was in rude health, and looked about him insolently, as 
 one accustomed to have his own way and to brook no 
 contradiction. It was no small effort for him to accept 
 the place of an equal, let alone a suppliant, while he was 
 pitiably unconscious of the fact that, in the sight of the 
 Judge, he was naked as when he was born. The general 
 impression which he created was distasteful, there being 
 a forcefulness and an air of dictatorship about him telling 
 of habitual command. The poverty of the Plutocrat was 
 calculated to touch the stoniest heart, and a more lam- 
 entable instance of self-delusion it would have been 
 difficult to imagine. Added to this was his crass igno- 
 rance of the reversal of fortune and his inane conviction 
 that he could still buy up the universe, including the 
 Judge, whom he began by regarding as only another 
 pawn in the game. 
 
 That he was to be cruelly undeceived none could 
 doubt, but it was tragic to watch his arrogance and the 
 Napoleonic air with which he surveyed the scene, as 
 
 9
 
 io THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 though he had merely to press a button to summon a 
 host of willing servitors. He failed to realise that he no 
 longer possessed a sou, and that, so far as externals 
 went, he was a pauper, dependent on his merits and on 
 the clemency of the man who was to pronounce his sen- 
 tence. To the Plutocrat, who had never been kept 
 waiting, each moment appeared a century, and a lifetime 
 passed before him, as happens to those suddenly brought 
 face to face with death. When the horror of his situa- 
 tion stole upon him, his greatest enemy would have ad- 
 mitted that he was no longer a subject for envy, but for 
 commiseration. The Judge was quick to see this and, 
 conquering any antipathy he may have felt, greeted his 
 unwilling visitor with quiet courtesy and a surprising 
 absence of irritation. Though this was not without its 
 effect, the accused struggled to withstand it and to re- 
 sume the overbearing attitude of his entrance, having 
 trained himself to resist inconvenient waves of emotion. 
 He was soon, as he would have mistakenly called it, 
 "himself " again, and assumed a confidence beyond be- 
 lief to those possessed of an iota of reverence. It was a 
 cause for thankfulness that there were no preliminaries 
 likely to increase the tension, or to invite friction between 
 two opposite forces at last brought face to face. 
 
 The Plutocrat rose, and, fighting to the end against 
 the admissions silently extorted, stated his case: "Con- 
 trary to my previous experience, I have come here to 
 accuse myself, not so much for my own relief, as by rea- 
 son of an irresistible drawing. Hitherto I believed no 
 power existed which could break me down, my aim hav-
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT n 
 
 ing been to break others down, and powder them into dust 
 if they crossed my path. I here confess, still against my 
 will, that I became the proudest of men, and that I 
 seldom had any other thought than self-aggrandisement. 
 My passion was power, and I stopped at nothing pro- 
 vided I could reign in my own corner of the world. Con- 
 scious as I was of few mental gifts, save those of cunning 
 and lack of conscience, I understood that for me money 
 was the only way of attaining my ambition; therefore for 
 this I sold my soul rather than miss my mark or take a 
 lower place. 
 
 "Many a time I alleged that it was not the gold but 
 the gaining of it that interested me, and, after a while, I 
 asserted that I had more than I could do with. But 
 that this was not the case was conclusively proved if it 
 came to a matter of giving anonymously, when I found it 
 was an actual pain. I grew to regard the people as non- 
 existent except for my own ends, and became insensible 
 to the poverty, hunger, and wretchedness of millions, on 
 condition that I could add to my private store. As for 
 the rights of man, I trod them under foot, and gloried 
 in the fact that my digestion was not affected by the fate 
 of the masses. Avarice gripped me more tightly than 
 I was aware; nevertheless I studiously maintained the 
 appearance of a good heart, and became a proverb for 
 geniality, lavishness, and a suppressed licentiousness 
 which was treated with amazing lenience by the pro- 
 fessedly religious. To be candid, I squared the latter by 
 magnificent subscriptions. At times, jaded by finance, 
 I dabbled in religion, finding a zest in the contrast
 
 12 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 afforded by worship, and an actual solace in the message 
 of the Gospel, without the least intention of bringing it to 
 bear on the work of the week. The emotions of a poem 
 not over rife on 'Change filled me with vivid satisfaction, 
 but I was conscious that my presence brought a stain 
 upon and endangered the spirituality of the churches 
 which I supported. 
 
 "The Arts came in for my patronage. I rivalled Mae- 
 cenas in the splendour of my gifts to those in whom I 
 detected a genius which I saw could be put to good 
 account. I founded schools of learning that students 
 might revere me, but I also fostered knowledge because 
 it spelt strength, and because I desired that my nation 
 should head the world. I scoured all countries for 
 treasures through which my name should be glorified, 
 and should be mainly known as that of one who had 
 brought the chefs d'ceuvre of mankind within the reach of 
 the people. There was a method in my madness, this 
 exploiting of the aesthetic adding to my credit, and dis- 
 guising my ultimate design of adding to my personal 
 wealth. 
 
 "I was careful to place those of whom I had taken ad- 
 vantage under such heavy obligation to me that no 
 voice could be raised except in my favour. It amused me 
 that I could create dread wherever I pleased, and that, 
 when peace and war hung in the balance, statesmen 
 should resort to me for advice, and still more for assis- 
 tance. Socially I became a dominating force, though 
 aware that bullion formed my sole attraction, and, me- 
 diocre as was my origin, I frequently entertained royalty,
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 13 
 
 my respect for whom, I confess, was hardly enhanced by 
 their affecting my company. I cannot help adding, even 
 here, that these occasions stand out among the supreme 
 moments of my life, though for the existence of such 
 folly amid my general astuteness I can give no logical 
 explanation. 
 
 "For years my concentration on business was an 
 asceticism, but there came a time when desires hitherto 
 unknown, or starved by neglect, awoke with a force which 
 brought me shame. Till then, however much I had 
 sinned in the matter of money, I had been a sincere 
 champion of morals, possibly because it was a consider- 
 able asset towards commercial success. To escape 
 from this novel attack of carnality, I bought and bought 
 and bought, but was increasingly bored. The company 
 which I now cultivated, and the world to which I had 
 the key, demoralised the best part of my being, and, 
 having long considered myself safe as a financier, I found 
 myself to be only, and very much, a man. I am still 
 so far imbued with respect for my early training and for 
 my father's memory that, with your indulgence, I forbear 
 to describe the depths to which I descended, or my asso- 
 ciation with iniquities for the abolition of which I pub- 
 licly provided large sums, but not so large as to attract 
 notice. 
 
 "In the earlier stages of my career I was so preoccu- 
 pied with business that my affections were practically 
 in abeyance, though my home life was without a flaw, 
 and I cannot fix the moment when my happiness ceased 
 to consist in enriching the wife who had been the angel
 
 i 4 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 of my humbler days. Honestly I could never have con- 
 ceived myself unfaithful to one to whom I owe more 
 than I care to admit, but, driven in middle life from the 
 paradise of purity, I underwent a torture with which none 
 would credit me, and which, if once admitted, would have 
 shattered the pedestal on which I stood in the eyes of the 
 world. The nervous tension of this Jekyll-and-Hyde 
 existence proved too strong for me, and I became a prey 
 to a fantasy which undermined my obligations to my 
 family, whom I treated with a combination of Caesar 
 and Santa Claus. 
 
 "My whole career was built upon sand. Times with- 
 out number, had I not been phenomenally rich, I should 
 have occupied a prison cell, but I continued to pose as a 
 philanthropist, and left a name honoured by the race. 
 My egoism reached its zenith when, in my will, I made 
 it a condition not only that lands should be called after 
 that same name, but that my beneficiaries should adopt it, 
 if not already theirs, to the damage of their pride and to 
 the loss of their identity. I went so far as to insist that 
 they should change their religion for that which I had 
 professed, and sell their God as the price of my favours. 
 I made munificent bequests to charity, the number of 
 institutions founded to perpetuate my memory being 
 prodigious. Nor did I show any compassion for my 
 heirs, conferring on them, without compunction, a curse 
 which was bound to result in sloth or in the arrogance 
 that had blemished my own character. This is the burden 
 of guilt laid upon me to confess as I stand before the Court, 
 accept its decisions, and throw myself on its mercy."
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 15 
 
 There was a buoyancy in the advocate's mien and a 
 light in his eyes which augured well for the defence, 
 and made it clear that there were elements of genuine 
 goodness beneath the acknowledged wickedness of the 
 prisoner. "I rise, my Lord," he said, "to point out 
 that the accused, according to the rule of this Court, has 
 confined himself strictly to the worst side of his case. I 
 am thankful that my task is to present certain qualifica- 
 tions which are none the less based on truth. From his 
 infancy I have known him, and can recall how, as a child, 
 he was full of piety and often planned a life of service 
 and self-sacrifice on a magnificent scale. The career 
 painted by him in such dark colours was by no means 
 designed, but an unfortunate stroke of fortune awakened 
 a latent covetousness of which I have seldom failed to 
 find the counterpart, save in the elect. It may even 
 be argued that without this trait the world could not 
 continue, and that to it, in some shape, every external 
 advance is due. Whatever the line my client had 
 adopted, he would have been restless until he had 
 achieved the foremost place, and though this catas- 
 trophe of success, on his own showing, degraded him, 
 passages of undeniable merit occurred in his attainment 
 of it. 
 
 "He worked harder than most men of his day, until 
 he became a byword against indolence. In his own way 
 he benefited and beautified the world, inspiring hundreds 
 to develop their talents, and thus promoting the general 
 welfare. Constantly, though it was not for him to say 
 so, he used this money, however ill gotten, for drying
 
 1 6 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 tears, and tides of genuine pity swept over him, resulting 
 in actions of which none has ever heard. His piety, 
 hybrid as it may seem, was the deepest part of his being, 
 and he often found himself, when the sycophants had 
 withdrawn, communing with Heaven under the stars, 
 and wondering where he could find one friend. The 
 knowledge of his own want of mentality made him lavish 
 his fortune in dispelling ignorance, though this endeavour 
 may have been smirched by the megalomania and inter- 
 estedness of which he spoke. 
 
 "To no woman was he deliberately unkind, though he 
 loved many, condoning it on the specious pretext that he 
 had a greater heart than most. Only your Lordship 
 can guess how deeply this man suffered, and I have 
 watched him sobbing for very solitude at some revelry, 
 or in some great gathering to do him honour. I grant 
 that the will was as cowardly and tyrannical as can be 
 imagined, nor can my love for him refute the charges he 
 has preferred against himself in regard to humanity. I 
 make no reference to the bequests, knowing that it is 
 your rule to count them for nothing, which represents 
 their exact cost to the testator. But, seeing how satu- 
 rated all men and women are with greed, given the oppor- 
 tunity, and how easy it is to justify the means by the end, 
 I claim not merely your mercy, but an adjustment of the 
 scales possible only to yourself. This man had the 
 money-making instinct to an unwonted extent; he was 
 not constitutionally cruel. It is no euphemism to 
 describe his special talent as skill, though I grant that it 
 was associated with cunning, and we have it on record
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 17 
 
 that the greatest enemy of mankind was victimised by 
 love of power, though originally an angel. The mutabil- 
 ity of the accused and the hell through which he has 
 passed are well known to me. His present emptiness is 
 in itself an agony which instinct tells me your Lordship 
 will take into account when you pronounce your verdict 
 on one whose present misery goes far to pay the price of 
 previous wrong." 
 
 Then followed certain questions put by the Judge to the 
 prisoner, whom he addressed with the deference due to one 
 who would have regarded its absence as a studied insult. 
 
 The Plutocrat, when asked whether he looked on the 
 wealth which he had amassed as his own, or whether he 
 had been actually dishonest throughout his life, declared 
 that, had he not taken advantage of the ignorance of 
 others, and had he not adopted certain sharp measures, he 
 could not have laid the foundations of his subsequent 
 fortune. Once established, possession had meant for him 
 nine points of the law. 
 
 On the point of his humaneness, the Judge questioned 
 the accused as to how it was compatible with the meas- 
 ures he must have employed to acquire his means of ex- 
 pressing it. To this the prisoner replied that, in what 
 he called "business," he had made it a practice to best 
 his neighbour and, if he interfered with his projects, not 
 only to show him no mercy, but to raise himself on the 
 ruin of his friend. Having no use for failures, he had 
 felt no pity for the fool; not that he intended to fleece 
 him, but that, being keener on the game than the goal, 
 he had come to despise those whom he had defeated in
 
 i8 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 the struggle. Afterwards, when he was rich, he had been 
 moved to play the benefactor on the principle of a sop 
 to Cerberus, and to soothe his pangs of conscience by the 
 relief of those he had impoverished. 
 
 The Judge having alluded to the advocate's statement 
 as to his religious side, the Plutocrat showed signs of 
 regret, and declared that his only peaceful hours were 
 those spent in prayer. After such retirement he had 
 more than once determined to ask that his case might 
 be dealt with by the Magistrate, to show his books and 
 to start fair again at the bottom of the ladder, but the 
 price was too great, and the impulse had passed away. 
 
 Concerning his relations with women, he evinced a 
 softness few would have expected, but it appeared that, 
 so introspective had he grown in his search for gold, it 
 became a mania to discover some one who loved him for 
 himself. As a result, he had developed into the loneliest 
 of men, driven to excesses in pursuit of some new sensa- 
 tion or some consolation to render bearable the desert 
 in which he had condemned himself to live. He ad- 
 mitted having possessed the most loyal and devoted of 
 wives, who had brought him the only unalloyed joy he 
 had ever known, before his brain was virtually turned 
 and he had become his own gaoler in his quest for liberty. 
 No further allusion was made to his vicious proclivities, 
 as being a personal affair, sporadic and foreign to the 
 real man. They were also held to serve no good pur- 
 pose by the President of the Court, whose experience 
 led him to consider the very memory of them as more 
 than sufficient martyrdom to a sensitive nature.
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 19 
 
 The Judge, then, with uncommon gentleness, asked 
 him if he had been happy, to which the prisoner jauntily 
 responded that at any rate he had done his best to be so, 
 and, on the whole, he could not complain, but, in the 
 end, unable to endure it longer, he owned to his wretched- 
 ness. He confessed that he would give the world to 
 know the joy of honest labour and to earn his pay by 
 the sweat of his brow, rather -than continue in the 
 splendour and falsity which he loathed, but from which 
 he supposed he could never break free. 
 
 The Judge 's summing up displayed a breadth of view, 
 without laxity, rarely met with. He restrained an im- 
 pulse to dilate on the contrast between riches and pov- 
 erty, as though no end could be gained on that score 
 by further aggravation. So courteous was he that he 
 placed himself in the position of the prisoner, nor would 
 any have inferred that he had known what it was to have 
 no shelter and to ask for alms. 
 
 "I wish to thank you," he began, "for your confi- 
 dence, though it has been extracted from you. You 
 clearly show that this wealth of yours has by no means 
 brought you what you expected. If it was built on 
 even a questionable foundation, the entire fabric falls 
 to the ground, with the result that none of it truly be- 
 longed to you except your early earnings. You have 
 already been punished by the consequent satiety, and 
 you now realise the stupidity of your striving. Though 
 the public think you have got off lightly, you know this 
 to be untrue, for you have had to undergo a private 
 torment unguessed at by the stranger. I can corrobo-
 
 20 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 rate the evidence of your counsel, having taken note of 
 every sigh, every prayer, and every act of kindness which 
 you have often denied. Again and again have come to 
 me those who look to you as the saviour of their lives, 
 and I agree that, in a large measure, you have benefited 
 humanity, furnished an incentive to action, and played 
 your part in the evolution of mankind. 
 
 "I have gauged your isolation at home, where you 
 acted the tyrant, to the concealing of your true self. 
 I have heard the wail of your loneliness while you re- 
 pelled those who would have comforted you, because 
 suspiciousness made you like a sparrow on the housetop. 
 I have marked, too, the anger of the crowd, many of 
 whom had hardly bread enough to go round, while you 
 flaunted in their faces a luxury and display which proved 
 you thoughtless beyond words. This was not remedied 
 by your attitudinising as a patriot and promoter of 
 civilisation. Little did you dream of the epidemic of 
 covetousness and avoidance of work in favour of quick 
 returns created by the publication of your balance- 
 sheets. At your door may be laid the suicide of many 
 who, without your gifts, embarked on the same course, but, 
 failing, found despair. It adds to your guilt that, though 
 you piled up these millions, you were still able to say 
 your Pater Noster and to assume a discipleship involving, 
 if not poverty, at least moderation. You will see, with- 
 out further emphasis, that, if such anomalies occurred in 
 the natural world, starving dogs would soon make an 
 end of one who heaped his kennel with bones and called 
 them sacrosanct, under the name of property, because
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 21 
 
 the rest might have done the same had it been in their 
 power. 
 
 "The most harmful aspect of your life, though, is 
 your public mention of a Name which you should have 
 kept to yourself, whereby you have done much to seduce 
 a nation and to promote prattle on the subject of probity. 
 How many curse you in secret, whether they have the 
 right to do so or not, you will never know, and, though 
 you were acquainted with the adage of the camel and the 
 needle's eye, you did obeisance to the golden image and 
 fell down before it as your god. Forgive my righteous 
 indignation, but the whip is more than warranted when 
 Croesus enters the temple and claims companionship 
 with the Nazarene. 
 
 "You must learn that you were never so important 
 as others led you to believe, and that the world would 
 have gone on as well if you had not been born. Your 
 excuse as to the circulation of money is another instance 
 of your self-deception, your root mistake having been 
 that you, and you alone, were the alpha and omega of 
 existence. You falsely estimated what you could see 
 compared with the invisible, while you basely misused 
 gifts which might have been a channel for untold good. 
 You would probably be the first to acknowledge that, in 
 your case, success has resulted in failure, and though I 
 well understand your advocate's plea in view of your 
 evident pain, I should not love you unless I decreed that 
 you must continue to suffer until your entire outlook is 
 changed. As to the lapse into a libertinage which 
 caused you surprise, it is but natural that, having ac-
 
 22 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 quired all the kingdoms through falling down and wor- 
 shipping, you should have then become its easy victim. 
 Small wonder that a man should seek romance in flinging 
 himself from giddy heights, being sated with wealth 
 which, to his still greater hurt, provides a mattress for 
 the stones. 
 
 "Reparation to those you have injured is out of your 
 power, which must add to your anguish, but the law of 
 truth demands that you work out your salvation with 
 fear and trembling on the reverse of the lines which have 
 proved so disastrous. You will, therefore, leave this 
 Court condemned to a life of that labour which you 
 profess to desire, yet at the same time yearning to effect 
 the material good which will now be out of your reach. 
 You shall taste the pinch of poverty and, when your 
 health is gone, you, too, shall be forced to receive gifts 
 which will hurt your pride beyond endurance. You 
 shall also know the pain of seeing those you love sick, 
 without being able to give them comforts, and, tor- 
 tured by their stress, you shall be tempted to steal. 
 You, in your turn, shall watch from outside the luxury 
 and waste of those who make thousands cornering mar- 
 kets, gambling in shares, and achieving fortunes in an 
 hour. 
 
 "You will then realise that the world was not made 
 for a few individuals, but for all, who are equally dear in 
 the sight of their Father, and for whom He will never 
 keep silence until they are treated with similar respect. 
 You may be inclined to become an extremist in the oppo- 
 site direction, but you will find relief in diligence. You
 
 THE PLUTOCRAT 23 
 
 will go the length of championing the cause of the crowd, 
 explaining that the removal of these offences and the 
 restoration of justice lies in their own power, if they 
 acquire the art of self-government and of co-operation 
 for the common good. By this means you shall dis- 
 cover your real standing, and, when the true brotherhood 
 has been revealed to you, you shall know by heart, and 
 not by rote, the "Our Father" which your mother 
 taught you long ago. 
 
 "You shall then be able to use this gift of yours, which 
 amounts to genius, and which will remain to you, for 
 the highest ends, but you shall express your generosity 
 through the medium of the State without the harm of a 
 single dole. To a man like yourself this restriction, 
 though a bitter medicine, is necessary, owing to your 
 innate vulgarity, lest personal giving of any kind should 
 once more prove a deadly danger both to the donor and 
 the recipient. As to 'being loved for yourself,' which 
 was your radical quest, the crown of a great devotion 
 shall be bestowed upon you by your country, since it 
 shall have been earned by your love and your own right 
 arm. Above all, you shall be able to indulge in religion 
 without hypocrisy when your craving to be cared for 
 shall have ceased to be, and you shall find your heaven, 
 not so much in showering gold to the applause of mul- 
 titudes, as in heart service. In this task your wife 
 shall join you, and you shall be happy."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE DERELICT 
 
 HE WAS at home directly, and lolled on the chair 
 as if nothing mattered provided he had some 
 sort of seat on which to laze. The only thing 
 he missed was his baccy, but such a habit had chewing 
 become, that his mouth moved like that of a cow, and 
 he took about as much notice of what was going on round 
 him. His face showed little or no pain, and he was not 
 worrying so long as he had found shelter, though he 
 vaguely wondered what kind of move this meant. His 
 life, which had been one continuous waiting on events, 
 caused him to take the next thing as it turned up, his 
 rule being to turn up nothing on his own account. A 
 lengthened residence in the open air had bronzed his 
 unmanly countenance, and he was for all the world 
 like an animal, without the passion suggested by the 
 word. A better description of him was, a thing in hu- 
 mans, which made it exciting to watch whether the 
 Judge would be able to bring what was out of what was 
 not. 
 
 The Derelict, having condescended to take in his 
 surroundings, remained equally unmoved, as the aspect 
 of the Judge deceived him into thinking that he had 
 
 24
 
 THE DERELICT 25 
 
 met another "softy" who would get him out of the 
 fix. On his hands were few, if any, blisters, though his 
 thumb and forefinger bore marks of which he had taken 
 no trouble to rid himself. His eyes were by no means 
 those of a drunkard, but they peered about as though 
 hoping to find something on the floor which had been 
 left by the last occupant. The most alarming thing 
 about the prisoner was that he did not mind being one, 
 and that between him and the ordinary embodiments of 
 justice had long been established an unhealthy intimacy. 
 This was the man whom the Judge had not only to 
 break down (which was an everyday affair with the 
 Derelict), but to build up, his task being to construct 
 out of this mass of nothingness a living soul. 
 
 Meanwhile hardly more could be said of the prisoner 
 than that he still missed his baccy, and was only too 
 content to allow the Judge to proceed at his leisure, as 
 at all events it passed the time. When he half stood up 
 to make his confession, he was in a poor plight, having 
 been a stranger for years to the notion of (as he would 
 have put it) "splitting on himself." The interest of the 
 case became manifest as he rambled on, till, before the 
 end, a gleam of light revealed itself in the murky dark- 
 ness. 
 
 "Why I am here," he said, "blow me if I can make out, 
 and it is the rummiest go I have as yet struck. Up till 
 now my job has been to make out I was right, but now 
 it seems to be to tell you all about it, which the beak 
 has generally told me. The idea of not making excuses 
 seems a bit queer, so you will pardon me if I don't
 
 26 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 take to it easily. I doubt if I have ever said I was 
 sorry, or, if so, I have forgotten it. The fact is, I have 
 always cared for my victuals more than for most else, 
 and when I was a lad I often shirked school, but I found 
 myself at home for meals. I never could abide book 
 learning, but I was as cute as they are made, and if the 
 master didn't know how I passed the Seventh Standard, 
 I did, and I got the Scripture Prize, and chance it. My 
 mother used to say it was the company I kept which 
 brought me where I got to, but that's a bit off, and if I 
 was always with a gang of idle boys, it was because I 
 liked it and was born to be their leader. 
 
 "I didn't keep any of my jobs, and never learned a 
 trade, but picked up what I could, and didn't care much 
 how. Now and again I was mighty busy at what passed 
 for work, if it was in the open and meant no study. I 
 got to love the excitement of uncertainty, and put in 
 some fine times, at least they seemed so to me. As I 
 grew older I used to travel a bit to see the country, living 
 on what I could get as I went along, and when I came 
 back I made my pals jealous by the yarns I pitched to 
 them of a larger world. When they asked me if I had 
 found work, I scorned the notion, and let them think it 
 was beneath me to soil my hands. I knew how to talk 
 about it, though, and how to swell the crowds round a 
 mob orator on the rights of the poor. I went on with 
 this sort of game till I began to think my grievances 
 were real, and by degrees I got the patter by heart. 
 
 "I spent several terms in prison, which, anyhow, I 
 preferred to the workhouse, where I couldn't abide the
 
 THE DERELICT 27 
 
 company, for you did get your meals regular in quod, 
 you knew what you had to do, and, when you got settled 
 down, it was kind of homelike. When I was there I 
 became a bit of a hypocrite, and more than once spoofed 
 the chaplain, which I begin to feel was a lower-down act 
 than all the thieving outside. I was never found for 
 violence, for I hadn't the pluck, but I just wanted to 
 get along as best I could, granted I didn't have to 
 make no effort. It's a bit difficult to say what it all 
 comes to when you tot it up, but I had some good old 
 times lying about in the parks, watching the kids, and 
 reading the papers, of which I was terrible fond. 
 
 "If you ask me what happened to the others, it's 
 ever so long since I heard of them, but I wasn't good at 
 writing letters, except begging ones, which I was put 
 up to doing at the doss-house and which turned out no 
 end of a soft thing. I expect I felt pricks of remorse, 
 but I knew they meant work, and as I wasn't having 
 any, I choked them, though I liked hymns, and it was a 
 treat to have a good cry. I have often sobbed over 
 that chap who left his father and went it till the victuals 
 ran out, and he had to feed on the husks they gave the 
 pigs, but I do think it was a shame that no man gave 
 him nothing when he was hungry, and what I said was, 
 'Poor fellow, not to be able to get a square meal after 
 he had stood treat.' And I like the way the old governor 
 fell on his neck and kissed him, and soon made it all 
 right, but I was fair upset when he asked to be made 
 like one of the servants, and I knew I should never have 
 stopped, if it had meant turning to on the land after
 
 28 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 the bean-feast. So I used to try and forget it, though 
 I collapsed regular when I heard it again. But I didn't 
 alter, not a little bit, and if you was to ask me straight, 
 I still think it pretty hard on a chap to be put into this 
 world to earn his bread. There's no good saying I 
 am happy, for I'm not, and it's no good your giving 
 me time, for I've had all that. What I want is a new 
 sort of lay altogether, but even that's no good unless I 
 start right over again, and if you can make a man of me, 
 I'll thank you, but I ain't going to make no promises." 
 
 The advocate was more sad than angry, feeling that 
 there were few arguments in favour of the prisoner, yet 
 assured that the hopelessness of the story would appeal 
 to the Judge. He knew the Derelict well, and though the 
 latter had never acted on his advice, he had often asked 
 him to tramp alongside him on the road. He had had 
 long talks with him in his cell, and, however abortive 
 the results, he had always visited him again when sent 
 for, and each time thought that he was going to turn. 
 Somehow he had grown attached to this failure, who had 
 caused him sorrow rather than disgust at his absence of 
 heart. When he rose to defend the Derelict his language 
 was ultra human, though, conscious of the danger of 
 being maudlin, he did his best to adopt the sterner side, 
 and to remind himself of the law of sequence. 
 
 "I rise, my Lord," he said, "to plead for the prisoner, 
 and the word exactly expresses my feeling. Defence 
 I have none, but his very abjectness is a challenge to 
 your charity. His far-off country yielded him no joy, 
 nor can he be said to have indulged in riotous living,
 
 THE DERELICT 29 
 
 since he had neither money to pay for it nor spirit to 
 revel in it. The time he put in was as dull and weird 
 as can be told. I maintain that he was not what is 
 called wicked so much as slothful, though both adjectives 
 were used in the case of one who hid his talent in a 
 napkin. He hardly, if ever, had the remotest suspicion 
 of harming any one, for with a disposition like his there 
 was no one whom he could injure. As for doing harm 
 to himself, he knew none but bodily discomfort. In 
 regard to sloth, he was virtually born diseased, and, 
 though he made it worse by not correcting it, the germs 
 of it were in him to a degree which should disarm those 
 who would too hastily condemn. 
 
 "No one can tell, save one who has been much in his 
 company, how he grew to loathe work, and to regard with 
 contempt and shrinking the first axiom of his salvation. 
 Though it may not influence his sentence, I would re- 
 mark that the genus loafer covers a wider area than 
 men pause to consider. Many there are, my Lord, who 
 never do an honest day's work, and who find it possible 
 to live upon a woman, though the judgment of them is 
 lenient provided the sum is large enough, and she wears 
 a ring. Far cleverer, far wickeder, and far more guilty 
 than the Derelict, they manage to pass a much pleasanter 
 existence, without being accused of having visited a 
 country farther off than that touched by the prisoner. 
 I am aware that a thousand blacks do not make a white, 
 and that my brief has to do with the case in hand, but 
 I contend that sloth on a magnificent scale is largely 
 responsible for the same vice on the lowest plane.
 
 3 o THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 This man knew much of the emotional side of religion, 
 and though it was beyond him to grasp its connection 
 with ethics, he would never have found even a passing 
 consolation in the account of the prodigal unless he had 
 had within himself the elements of the wandering boy. 
 
 "I have often marvelled at his preference of the vilest 
 weather outside to the work of the casual ward, but I 
 have seen him more than once give up his seat to another 
 wreck, and share with a dog as hungry as himself food 
 bestowed on him by some kind soul. Once, on the stroke 
 of midnight, when he had actually earned sixpence by 
 holding a cab-horse, I watched him hand it over to a 
 poor chap who would otherwise also have been out; I 
 then knew for a certainty that my Derelict was not 
 altogether bad. As I look at your Lordship, my hopes 
 rise, not that I expect any petting, but because I rely 
 on your love of restoring. So I leave him in the hands 
 of the only person I know who, when he loves, loves to 
 the end." 
 
 The Judge treated the Derelict as a brother. 
 
 "Tell me about your home," he said. 
 
 "You couldn't have called it one." 
 
 "What did your father do?" 
 
 "We never could quite make out, but he came home of 
 a night." 
 
 "And your mother?" 
 
 " She was a hard-working woman, at least she was 
 always washing up, and when I think of it, she most 
 usual was standing outside with her sleeves tucked up, 
 talking to the woman next door."
 
 THE DERELICT 31 
 
 "Where was she when not taking the air? " 
 
 "At the 'Spotted Dog.'" 
 
 "Was the home clean?" 
 
 "Well, there wasn't enough in it to make it hard to 
 keep tidy, for most of it was put away. My mother 
 never went herself, but there was a woman at the top 
 of the street who used to do that for the rest, at any 
 rate when they was young." 
 
 "Were your father and mother good friends?" 
 
 "They usedn't to see too much of each other, but they 
 didn't fall out any more than the others." 
 
 "How did you spend your evenings?" 
 
 "In the streets." 
 
 "Where did you spend your Sundays? " 
 
 "In the streets." 
 
 "What was your idea of Heaven? " 
 
 "The streets all paved with gold." 
 
 "As you grew older, did you pretend to work?" 
 
 "Yes, I pretended all right." 
 
 "Did you wear the clothes of a working-man?" 
 
 "Yes, I got up proper in corduroys." 
 
 "Had you any friends among the working-men?" 
 
 "No, I never took to them much, nor they to me." 
 
 "How soon did you become dishonest?" 
 
 "As long as I can remember." 
 
 "Were you angry with the rich? " 
 
 "Can't say I was so long as I could get anything out 
 of them." 
 
 "Were you touched by the sadness and misery you 
 often saw? "
 
 32 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Yes, I was that, but we were all in the same boat, 
 and it didn't seem no good making a fuss." 
 
 "Did you envy men as you saw them returning home, 
 happy after an honest day's toil? " 
 
 "Can't say as I did, though I knew they had the 
 best of it." 
 
 "Did no one ever give you a chance?" 
 
 " Scores of times, but the best of them would not give 
 me money, and I got tired of sermons." 
 
 "Did it strike you, as you sprawled in the parks, 
 or lay on the benches, that you were a public nuisance, 
 and that you were degrading not only yourself but your 
 country?" 
 
 "I have often heard that style of thing, but tall- 
 talk always turned me fair sick." 
 
 "Did you sometimes suffer because the children 
 whose games you watched might turn out like yourself? " 
 
 "My God! I did, and I had a catch in my throat when 
 I saw signs of it in some of them which made me feel 
 that their number was up." 
 
 "Did you not know in your heart that, unless you 
 turned to and by the sweat of your brow earned one 
 day's pay, you were hopelessly lost?" 
 
 "Yes, I did know it, but I could not have done it 
 for a pension." 
 
 "Couldn't or wouldn't?" 
 
 "Well, then, wouldn't, if you will have it, but such 
 as you cannot understand such as me." 
 
 "That isn't true. Tell me how you felt as you grew 
 older, and as begging became your second nature."
 
 THE DERELICT 33 
 
 "I got not to feel at all." 
 
 "What would you have called your happiest times?" 
 
 "Now you fair puzzle me, but it wasn't bad when I 
 had done some cove a good turn, though it didn't run 
 to what you might call happiness. You see if I did give 
 anything, I'd most pinched it already, which makes all 
 the odds." 
 
 "Would you say that you had been embittered by 
 your life?" 
 
 "Not a bit of it. They were all very good to me, 
 they were, and I got fond even of them warder chaps, 
 who seemed to sort of know my weakness and let me 
 down proper." 
 
 "How would you describe the world from your point 
 of view?" 
 
 "It was a deal too kind to me, your Worship, or I 
 might have been a better man. But it seems to me 
 that we sort of chaps act as a kind of vent for the feel- 
 ings, so in a roundabout way it would be a poorer 
 place without us." 
 
 "Should you like to go back to it?" 
 
 "What do you take me for?" 
 
 "If you did, would you do much the same?" 
 
 "What I says is, I want a fresh start, and if you 
 could emigrate me to a different sort of place, that's 
 what I want. But you've got to change me first, your 
 Worship, and if I got to Heaven itself sudden, I shouldn't 
 fly, I should just lie down and snooze, while the others 
 took the message." 
 
 "Have you ever loved any one?"
 
 34 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Can't say as I have, if you mean that kind of feeling 
 which comes over a fellow and makes him look as if 
 he'd seen a light, and as if he could never disgrace him- 
 self again." 
 
 "Yes, I mean just that feeling." 
 
 "Well, it's never come my way; that's all I can say." 
 
 The heart of the Judge ached for the Derelict, and he 
 resembled one who wept over a city because its inhabi- 
 tants had refused to know the things belonging to their 
 peace. He felt keenly the need of reconstruction. He 
 knew that lecturing would be lost on the prisoner, who 
 had long used it up, and perceived that he was already 
 too religious. The poor fellow needed to realise that 
 there were several other people besides himself, and, 
 until some tiny seed of love was planted in his heart, all 
 other methods, if not useless, were premature. The 
 Judge was encouraged by the fact that there was less 
 blarney in his answers than he had looked for, and as he 
 knelt down to blow the smoking flax into a flame, he was 
 grateful to think that it was not wholly quenched. 
 
 "Your sentence," he said, " is bound to be a long one, 
 though you may rest assured that it shall not become the 
 routine which defeated the ends of your other punish- 
 ments. Before you can learn how to work you must 
 learn how to love, and for this reason you shall find 
 yourself in scenes of suffering where you, and only you, 
 can bring aid. In the early stages you may refuse, and 
 you may turn your back on the task involved, by reason 
 of ingrained habit. But the pity which, from time to 
 time, peeped out of you shall gradually become your
 
 THE DERELICT 35 
 
 master. Among the sufferers shall be children, and, 
 when you carry them in your arms because they cannot 
 walk, into your face shall come a new expression. As 
 you gaze on these results of sloth in their parents, and 
 as you serve them without pay, your eyes shall lose 
 their furtive look and shall grow larger as the best 
 tears you have ever shed flow down your cheeks. You 
 shall become the servant of the aged and the outworn, 
 who are deserted of all, and you shall fetch and carry 
 for the imbeciles, till you find yourself singing the old 
 hymns, but in a different key. Burnt into your being 
 shall be the truth that you are part of a whole, and, when 
 your heart is broken by it, you shall acquire sorrow for 
 the waste of your manhood. 
 
 "Then will come a revelation which you could never 
 have guessed. You will witness your former self as a 
 curse to your country. You will be repelled by the 
 thought of the blight which you became, and you will pray 
 with your whole soul that you may repair the panic which 
 you caused among those who watched you and were 
 themselves on the verge of throwing up their hands. 
 You will hate such cowardice, and the angels you see in 
 your dreams will take on the form of the working-men 
 who whistled as they walked, and whom you pretended 
 to despise. You will at last see not only that men who 
 do not work are worse than the brute creation, but that 
 in work lies man's supreme chance of renovation. Your 
 incentive shall be to help the children and the old, 
 amongst whom you slaved, at first with pain, but, later, 
 because it became your prize. You shall go back to the
 
 36 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 beginning and you shall have a new pride which makes 
 it a crime to beg. You shall gain a distaste for deceit 
 of any kind, and you will refuse to impress religion into 
 the service of mendicancy. 
 
 "Whatever your resolve, the term is bound to be pro- 
 longed, and though my tenderness towards you is not 
 wanting, you need a stick more than a caress. Be cou- 
 rageous. Think of the children. Go back to the streets 
 which are still full of them. The time will come when, 
 through a discipline which will never let you go from 
 under its hand until its purpose is accomplished, you 
 shall respect yourself. Some day, when there is an 
 extra difficult job to be done, which no one will under- 
 take because it is too dull, too uphill, too tedious, and 
 because the only man who will do it is the man who cares 
 enough to consider hardship a trifle, a voice shall be 
 heard to say: 'Here am I, send me.' It shall come from 
 one who was once a Derelict."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 
 
 THE lady found it difficult to adjust herself to the 
 plainness of her environment, but was careful 
 to preserve the proper languor and remoteness. 
 She was disturbed to find that there was no gallery, and 
 her evident trouble at the thought of the comedy which 
 she had so long taken seriously was touching. Her whole 
 air was superficial, and she was ignorant of the first prin- 
 ciples of simplicity. Hardly a sadder situation could be 
 conceived, caste and class having ceased to count, and 
 the falsities of society being finished with. As she strove 
 with excellent taste to accommodate herself to the change, 
 her courage recalled scenes gracefully enacted under the 
 Terror. The directness of the affair, the absence of the 
 ornamental, and the fact that no chance was afforded 
 of producing any effect hurt her severely. The con- 
 trast of the Court with that to which she had been habitu- 
 ated was painfully oppressive, so that, when she looked 
 round in vain for the spurious supports conceded to 
 prestige, chivalry was aroused for one suddenly stripped 
 of the adventitious. 
 
 She was on the verge of tears, but her dignity came 
 to her rescue, helping her to retain an unnatural calm. 
 
 37
 
 38 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 Her de haul en has expression would have been grotesque 
 if it had not been pathetic, or if it had not been patent 
 that the ground was rapidly being taken from under 
 her feet. To the bulk of sane men and women the pre- 
 sentment of this superior being would have bordered 
 on the ludicrous, the more so since she was oblivious that 
 she was as much a back number as the Lama of Thibet. 
 The prisoner still regarded herself as an important per- 
 son, and the narrowness of her outlook augured badly 
 for her contact with the Catholicism of her Judge. 
 Nevertheless no one could deny that she possessed an 
 attractiveness traceable to the best pride and to a 
 gentleness which told of years of training in self-sup- 
 pression. It remained to be seen whether this was 
 only veneer or whether it could stand contradiction, 
 but, whatever the verdict, there was no fear that she 
 would not accept it without flinching, or, to use her own 
 vernacular, "in accordance with the traditions of her 
 house." 
 
 "I am here against my will," she said, "though I 
 acknowledge that it is a comfort to accuse myself of a 
 past so unreal that I now fail to see how it ever allured 
 me. It is stranger still how it held me so long, for it 
 was insufferably dull. I have read much modern 
 literature on the role of our set, which was sadly dis- 
 respectful, and evidently written by those who had not 
 the private entree, but I am compelled to own that there 
 was more truth in those witticisms than I have hitherto 
 allowed myself to admit. We were careful, as a rule, 
 to avoid anything which might be termed comic, hav-
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 39 
 
 ing practised the pronunciation of prunes and prisms 
 which makes me grateful for even this relief. 
 
 ''The virus of the system entered into us from our 
 christening, and even in the nursery we learned to strut, 
 so that years before we made our bow to the world of 
 fashion we had become little marionettes. Marriage 
 was held up to us as the end-all of existence, and we 
 were continually watched lest we should be natural or 
 do anything that was not well-bred. Etiquette was a 
 cult among us, though, from my present standpoint, 
 we became inane as the result of our worship. Our 
 parents, who were abnormally rich, took it for granted 
 that their daughters would make suitable alliances. 
 The question of love was seldom discussed, and I re- 
 member an elderly relation pronouncing it to be plebeian. 
 For my own part (though whether the tendency was 
 innate or acquired is beyond me to determine) had I 
 been asked what appealed to me most, I should un- 
 hesitatingly have answered a coronet, with strawberry 
 leaves for preference. Looking back, I marvel less at 
 my parents' ignorance than at my own crass folly, nor 
 have I a shadow of excuse to offer for sentiments which 
 I now regard as vulgar and despicable. I should of 
 course have spurned the accusation, having been taught 
 at least to pretend that such considerations were be- 
 neath my notice. 
 
 "All the girls in the family, strange to say, were 
 equally correct, and, to use the language of our world, 
 they did as they ought, which means that they did 
 extremely well. To speak for myself, I knew, without
 
 40 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 question, that I was doing despite to the instincts of 
 nature and of conscience. The blame was the greater 
 since I was gifted with a good brain, nor was it as if I 
 had fallen into a trap, or been sold without my con- 
 nivance. I had made up my mind that I was intended of 
 heaven to adorn a great position, and, however much I 
 may have been moved before my chance came, I care- 
 fully bided my time, regardless of any qualms I might 
 have caused in others. These harmless sensations, 
 indeed, served to ruffle the even surface of my days, 
 and there was but little or no ache in the place where 
 my heart should have been. The plan of my future 
 menage was deliberately thought out, nor can I deny 
 that I was content with my bargain. 
 
 "The joy of existence spelt, in my case, an ambition 
 for which I willingly sacrificed not only the claims of 
 affection, but (a surrender I paid for still more heavily 
 later) of knowledge, which, from the time of my choice, 
 receded farther into the background. Not that our 
 library was not one of the best, or that we neglected to 
 have a supply of the latest books and reviews on the 
 table, but many of the latter remained uncut, while 
 the former was gradually deserted. When my prize 
 came along I secured him without much difficulty, 
 hampered as he was by an establishment demanding 
 an heiress, and the arrangement was soon concluded. 
 It would be untrue to suggest that I was deeply moved 
 by fears for the future or regrets for the past. The 
 prospect of my new grandeur filled my horizon, and I 
 was too well schooled to make a display of feeling which
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 41 
 
 did not exist. The Church blessed the union with 
 pomp and solemnity, but without questioning my 
 motives or the state of my heart. As I see it by the 
 light of to-day, I can imagine no instance of greater 
 blasphemy or conspiracy to defraud than that won- 
 derful wedding, which afforded talk for days, encour- 
 aged trade, and inspired many present to aim at the 
 same goal. 
 
 "As for my duty to my new position, I doubt whether 
 at first I gave a thought to the obligations involved, 
 though eventually they formed the only part of it which 
 made it bearable. Privilege up to the hilt was what I 
 desired and what I meant to have, nor at the time did 
 I care for much else except to become a great lady. As 
 regards my marriage, I paid a price sufficient to satisfy 
 my worst enemy, but I prefer to accept the fact and be 
 silent. At least I never deceived myself in the choice 
 of my life's partner, and I cannot understand those who 
 place on the shoulders of another the burden of a fault 
 which at any rate ought to be shared. That my heart 
 woke and had its revenge is not surprising, and each day 
 I found myself striving, within the limitations I had 
 invoked, to invent some new outlet for the emotions 
 that I had denied. It is difficult to picture anything 
 more tedious than the routine of my existence, but I 
 consoled myself by every fashionable device for appearing 
 busy and expending my energies, while remaining in- 
 variably correct. 
 
 "I found the poor my chief refuge, and in visiting 
 them learned, almost to my awakening, what I had lost.
 
 42 
 
 I grew to envy them, though they envied me, and many 
 a time I wept in my boudoir when I recalled a mother 
 crooning over her child. I even read by stealth a Book 
 which I found in every cottage, and would have given 
 the world to appropriate, but which remained to me 
 Chinese, while to them it spoke in their native language. 
 There were moments when I almost yielded, but, having 
 learned some logic when I was a girl, I persuaded my- 
 self that, had I done so, I would have had either to retire 
 from a place I had gained at the expense of my soul, or 
 become a hopeless stumbling-block by my new pro- 
 fession in such a milieu. Little did the people know 
 what had come to me through them, but the dilemma 
 was too great for me to face, and, having made my own 
 bed, I elected to lie on it. 
 
 "I reverted to the conventional when I returned to 
 the world, and checked myself in the matter of religion, 
 which I found incompatible, beyond a certain point, 
 with the drawing-room and the Court. Thus my life 
 was spent in display or entertainment or pleasure, all 
 of the most approved description, though I found time 
 for good works, and longed, as a peri outside paradise, to 
 enter the kingdom of pain. At last I begin to see my 
 senseless stupidity in having left no legacy behind me 
 save that of an insipid and colourless story. Unac- 
 customed to sue for favours, I come here to state my 
 case, and to pray you of your goodness so to judge me, 
 that, by some means, however difficult, the soul which 
 I bartered may be quickened, and that, escaping from 
 these chimaeras, I may find the Christ."
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 43 
 
 The advocate was strongly moved by the recital of 
 the prisoner's history, but, on rising, felt that he had by 
 no means a hopeless task. "My Lord," he said, "I 
 beg leave to assure you that the lady has not done herself 
 justice, being still a slave to that good form of which 
 she has freely accused herself. I know of few tenderer 
 hearts, and of none more capable of natural love or 
 girlish gaiety. Times without number that heart has 
 gone near to breaking, without one complaint against 
 those who so brought her up that the great mistake of 
 her life was inevitable, but always holding that the false 
 step was hers alone. Again and again, might she have 
 had her way, she would have exchanged the ceremony 
 and the glitter for a cottage on the mountain side (at 
 least she thought so), but she played the game better 
 than she has alleged, and, whatever her shortcomings, 
 she never quailed. 
 
 "Her religious side was stronger than she has outlined, 
 and, though the world in her withered her piety, she 
 was more a woman of prayer than was ever guessed. 
 Though she spoke of herself as outside the kingdom of 
 pain, she suffered intensely in secret, and more than 
 once would have thrown herself on the mercy of the 
 Magistrate had she not been holden by pride. The 
 passion of her heart was the welfare of the masses the 
 last thing of which she would have been accused; but 
 the contrast appealed, and she yearned to do them a 
 kindness without conferring an obligation. Her own 
 awkwardness in this connection was a grief to her, but, 
 try as she might, she could not escape from being
 
 44 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 artificial. She hated the distance which her own sel- 
 fishness had placed between them and her, but whether 
 she would have diminished it the better to express her 
 caring is known only to your Lordship. I put it to you 
 that the gradual congealing of a generous nature, almost 
 strangled by convention at its birth, was largely attrib- 
 utable to the sphere in which she moved. She might 
 have become human save for her parents and for the 
 crowd of satellites who spoiled her, and I wish to em- 
 phasise the point that, however else she failed, she was a 
 rigid enemy of laxity of morals. 
 
 "I would ask you, then, to deal leniently with her 
 perverted judgment, which was causative of what fol- 
 lowed, but which can be readily understood, consider- 
 ing the bait dangled before her eyes from childhood. 
 Since she had persuaded herself that there were few 
 higher functions than service to the Throne, royalty 
 became for her a talisman, but she did not grasp its 
 mystic lesson or the largeness of its application. She 
 considered to be on duty actually sacred, nor was it sur- 
 prising that, through dwelling on ceremonials, she came to 
 imagine that she belonged to another order of beings. 
 This was not her chronic condition, and so contrary was 
 it to the age hi which she lived, that at other times she 
 wondered how long the farce would continue. The 
 pathos of her inward conflict would unman me were I 
 pleading to any other than your Lordship, but, though 
 much of her story is contemptible, I would argue that 
 its ground colour partakes largely of the humorous. 
 Knowing her as I do, I can testify that she was more
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 45 
 
 victimised than harmful, and I cannot but feel that her 
 heart is destined, by a process of expansion such as you 
 alone can advise, to fulfil itself on a scale worthy of her 
 silent longings." 
 
 The Judge's tone was sanguine, though his eyes quiv- 
 ered as he spoke with the accused, reserving his sen- 
 tence. When he questioned her as to her girlhood, she 
 answered that it was spoilt by lack of surprise, and that 
 her enjoyment was cloyed by excessive indulgence. 
 
 Asked as to her education, she owned to having had 
 the best teachers that money could command, but the 
 result was a smattering intended more for show than for 
 excellence in any special subject. 
 
 When the Judge tried to discover the best moments in 
 her early years, she replied the days when she was taken 
 to a children's hospital, or when, dressed in the simplest 
 clothes, she was allowed to scamper on her pony to her 
 heart's delight. 
 
 At the enquiry if she loved her suitor, even at first, 
 a sadness came over her, and she began to dream of 
 things which might have been. 
 
 W T hen the Judge referred to her attitude towards the 
 society into which she had entered at her marriage, her 
 frankness was striking as she said that, on this count, 
 she felt guilty of theft, since she had not given her heart 
 for what she had gained, and had therefore given nothing. 
 
 The mention of her children revealed the mother up 
 to a point, but when the Judge desired to know whether 
 she would prefer them to be brought up in simplicity, 
 she winced and candidly owned that, though she knew
 
 46 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 her answer to be illogical, she still wished them to pos- 
 sess the honours which had been responsible for her own 
 failure. 
 
 On being examined as to her remoteness and her pre- 
 tensions, which betrayed a grievous lack of ordinary 
 courtesy, she confessed that the habit had grown upon 
 her imperceptibly, but that, in such a presence, she 
 could only feel it to be a gross impertinence. 
 
 When the Judge alluded to the people, especially to 
 the suffering women in whom she was interested, her 
 tears began to flow, and the real person was disclosed. 
 Even then she confessed that she could not see her way 
 to forego the ridiculous dignity of her state, but that she 
 would willingly supply funds to those who would act 
 as almoners on her behalf. 
 
 Asked whether she did not deem it an inconceivable 
 waste of time to spend the few years allotted to her in 
 constant ceremony and unlimited attention to the dress- 
 maker, the Grande Dame admitted that, from her new 
 point of view, the folly, apart from the extravagance, 
 amounted to a sin. 
 
 When the Judge sought to discover her relations to- 
 wards the women of her day who strove to raise their 
 sisters by every means in their power, and, often enough, 
 at the expense of all they held dear, her answer was 
 that she had frequently condemned such people as 
 common, though inwardly conscious that their ideals 
 were true, but, if realised, would sweep away, the priv- 
 ileges which she enjoyed. 
 
 As to her connection with hospitals, bazaars, and the
 
 47 
 
 general role of Lady Bountiful, the prisoner naively stated 
 that, for the most part, she was intensely bored. Never- 
 theless she felt that, unless she went through them, her 
 position was in danger, and she regarded them as delicate 
 sops to what she called " the lower classes." 
 
 Here the Judge, with the faintest suspicion of annoy- 
 ance, asked how she dared to indulge in such language, to 
 which she responded that she supposed it would take a 
 long time to get it into her brain that she was of the 
 same flesh and blood as common folk. 
 
 When in conclusion he enquired if she had ever felt 
 intense since she had given herself over to formality, she 
 allowed that she had had visions of the heroic now and 
 again, but that she had shut them out lest they should 
 flood her world with light and show up its gruesome hol- 
 lowness. 
 
 The Judge was disappointed at the hold which custom 
 had gained over this poor lady who so soon contradicted 
 many of the softer spots of her confession, and found him- 
 self mainly thrown back on the pleading of her advocate. 
 But, mercifully for her, he saw beneath appearances and, 
 in pronouncing his sentence, displayed a wisdom and 
 knowledge of the world with which few would have 
 credited him. 
 
 "It is not for me," he said, "to increase your distress, 
 and I will only remark at the outset that I cannot imagine 
 anything more fatuous and unwise than the planning of 
 your life. The harm which you and those answerable 
 for it have done is greater than you can measure, or ever 
 intended, and little can you guess the thousands degraded
 
 48 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 by your desecration of the name Love. With your real 
 need of affection I know that you have been more than 
 punished in expelling the best, and in mistaking paste for 
 jewels. I wish to bring it home to you that countless 
 women through you have wrecked their lives and be- 
 come infected with the same vulgarity. Here there is 
 no question of titles, which some might be disposed to 
 uphold on the pretext of having something to live up to, 
 though reason would suggest that that is applicable to 
 all; but unless a marriage is undertaken for love, and love 
 alone, the person concerned has sold her body and done 
 despite to her honour. 
 
 "Your subsequent faults are a natural result of, or at 
 least allied to, your initial error. At the back of your 
 failings is the lack of that very refinement of which 
 you bought the letter, and, in the purchase, sold the 
 spirit. You may take comfort in the certainty that the 
 truest part of your nature is that side which loved the 
 children's hospital and the freedom of the outdoor life, 
 with its absence of self-consciousness or of the world. 
 
 "You and your exclusive circle need to learn that, 
 though in numbers you are a negligible quantity, the evil 
 of accentuating and developing snobbery cannot be 
 overrated. Avoiding as you do personal touch with the 
 crowd, whom you look down on as belonging to another 
 creation, you are apt to forget the wrath at such an insult 
 which may overwhelm them, and the red ruin which may 
 follow in its train. In a sense you make it more difficult 
 to believe in the Gospel than does the courtesan, and 
 when you speak of desiring to find the Christ, you forget
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 49 
 
 that He is acclaimed such because He was the Friend 
 of publicans and sinners. You seldom pause to con- 
 sider how human nature battens on the tale of a glamour 
 which you affect to despise, but which you have no inten- 
 tion of foregoing. It would seem to have escaped your 
 notice that the hungry hate you while they fawn on you, 
 and feast their eyes on tiaras, which you will concede are 
 out of keeping with the vein of sympathy permeating 
 your admissions. 
 
 "It is still more trenchant that this is no corollary to 
 your condition. There are those of your class who have 
 been reckoned among the sweetest women of their day, and 
 who, accepting privilege at its proper worth, have helped 
 to gladden and humanise the world. Such exceptions 
 have made the Gospel lovable, and, being too refined to 
 think over much of circumstance, have left the impres- 
 sion that their main concern was the sisterhood. This 
 obtained, however, in spite of their surroundings, and 
 cost them an isolation in the world of fashion as the un- 
 varying price of their consistency. No one understands 
 this better than yourself, and, in brief, its lesson is that, 
 if you desire to expiate your mistakes, you must first 
 realise that you are extremely small, that you have 
 been persistently self-indulgent, and that only through 
 a course of self-violence can you truly become a Grande 
 Dame. 
 
 "Your sentence, therefore, is that, however long it 
 may take you (and you have only yourself to please) , you 
 shall have no rest, and you shall know no peace till you 
 have discovered the secret of tenderness and the courage
 
 50 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 of sincerity. You shall find yourself in the same position 
 which your ancestors occupied before their fortunes came 
 to them through means which cannot bear too close 
 inspection. Though this may surprise you, therein lies 
 much of the accumulated insolence with which both your 
 families were impregnated, and which expressed itself 
 in your career, picturesque, elegant, and, to a certain 
 extent, pious as it may have been. You shall, for the 
 future, be unimpeded in the development of your being, 
 and the best in you will have a chance of flourishing 
 under the primitive conditions for which you profess to 
 pine. You shall live in the midst of trouble and pain 
 which only sympathy can alleviate, and it will be a hard 
 and a toilsome road, since you will carry with you the 
 recollection of the past. 
 
 "Your children must fight their own battles under 
 the disadvantages which you have brought upon them, 
 and which you would not alter if you could, but their 
 mother shall experience a joy which the world can never 
 give, and which she alone can bestow upon herself. You 
 shall be known as one who saw to it that none should 
 ever accuse her of timidity, or even prudence, hi a great 
 cause. You shall rejoice in an ecstasy from which you 
 have hitherto been debarred, and you shall at last know 
 the thrill of being yourself, without fearing to forfeit 
 your dignity in the excess of your devotion. Let me 
 console you by saying that, with your disposition, the 
 time will not be long, but that, in the words of your ad- 
 vocate, you are meant to accomplish an infinity of good. 
 A radical change is involved, but I know you too well to
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 51 
 
 think you would wish it otherwise, and your staying 
 power will serve you till you achieve, not the false, but 
 the true nobility. You will have found the key to the 
 Book which was open to the peasant, and which speaks 
 of a crown, but one of thorns."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 
 
 A MORE than ordinary collision between good 
 and evil was in the air. Though the presence 
 of the Judge expelled despair, the face of the ac- 
 cused brought it perilously near. It was difficult to sup- 
 press a desire that the trial might be concluded with no 
 delay, and that this Augean stable might be cleansed at 
 the hands of one stronger than Hercules, but whose love 
 surpassed that of women. The puzzle was to discover 
 anything worthy in the prisoner, and faith in the divine 
 spark latent in all was severely tested. 
 
 Again and again the effort had to be made to think of 
 him as part of a vast machine, powerless in himself, and 
 carried away by a stream no human strength could stem. 
 What could be his private life? Had he children? Did he 
 know aught of those endearments which go far to soften 
 the cruellest characters? To such questions there was 
 no answer, and it was hard to evoke an atom of pity for 
 one who appeared as adamant. The influence of his 
 personality was inimical, breathing the atmosphere not 
 so much of the criminal as of the cynic. As for the 
 veriest gleam of repentance, he had none, and, even at 
 such a crisis, was more on the lookout for "copy" than
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 53 
 
 occupied with the thought of the Judge, whom he al- 
 together failed to appreciate. The absence of business 
 or movement evidently tried him, and he chafed at the 
 waste of time. He missed the cables, the telephones, 
 tape machines, and host of reporters which had become 
 his daily food. After managing the affairs of the world, 
 it struck him as monstrous that a moment should have 
 arrived which was concerned with the management of 
 himself. But he took it all with perfect sang froid, and 
 adopted the usual bluff of one accustomed to tight places, 
 doubtless expecting to convert the incident, as of old, 
 into another gigantic and stupendous scoop: "GOD 
 AND THE YELLOW NEWS, EXCLUSIVE INTER- 
 VIEW!" immediately suggested itself. 
 
 He was constrained by the same irresistible force which 
 affected all arraigned, and his action was that of a para- 
 lysed man, whose limbs moved in a direction contrary 
 to his will. His initiative was palpably diminished when 
 he found himself reduced to the condition of crystal. 
 Without the slightest deference or shame as to his situa- 
 tion, he rose and, in a metallic voice by no means in his 
 favour, addressed the Judge : 
 
 "I find myself here, apart from any desire of my own, 
 for a searching audit, so would express a hope that you 
 will restrict the business to reasonable limits, as I rebel 
 against this detention. Kindly note that the confusion 
 due to my absence will cause much inconvenience else- 
 where." (The accused was still under the impression 
 that the end of the world would come if he were removed 
 from it.) "The terse description of my dossier is that I
 
 54 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 set myself to exploit the earth and, by hook or by crook, 
 to use the same for my own purposes, playing it, as one 
 would a fish, with every variety of fly which might at- 
 tract. 
 
 "Where or how I acquired the art, or, as many might 
 prefer to call it, the knack, is not important, but I con- 
 gratulate myself on being very much up to date. My 
 early enterprises were comparatively modest, as I realised 
 that the public had to be gently educated and accustomed 
 to the garbage which by degrees became their necessary 
 pabulum. I knew they had been previously reared on 
 healthier food, but I set myself to spoil their palate, in- 
 sisting that my sole desire was to satisfy their natural 
 appetite. Though the confession savours of brutality, 
 I flatter myself that I made them want it. When the 
 mischief was done, I emulated Pilate in the washing of 
 my hands, and regretted that I was forced to supply 
 their needs. 
 
 "There was not a sensation in human nature to which 
 I did not pander, and I made it a point that my count- 
 less readers should be liberated from the trouble of 
 thinking. Covetousness I roused without any qualms, di- 
 lating on the glory of gold, supplying stories suggestive 
 of Aladdin's lamp, and pointing out how every one could 
 find it by reading my journals. I stirred up discord 
 between Capital and Labour, master and man, feeding 
 the strike-fire with the fuel of dissension and hatred. 
 By being ultra patriotic I lashed the people into a 
 paroxysm of fury with their neighbours across our fron- 
 tiers, and constantly did my best to plunge nations into
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 55 
 
 war. The thought of the wreckage bound to follow in 
 its train, which could never have happened save for 
 the deliberate misrepresentation of the foreigner by 
 myself and those of my kidney in the opposite camp, 
 failed to touch me compared to the prospect of an enor- 
 mous increase in our circulation. 
 
 "To foster the lower instincts was a prominent part 
 of my programme, and on such subjects as murders, 
 horrors, accidents, fighting, crime, and brutal contests, 
 under the heading of sport, we outvied all other publica- 
 tions in the pungency of our descriptions. Finding that 
 divorce news was acceptable, our numbers could never 
 be accused of lack of intrigue, innuendo, or tasty refer- 
 ence, over which the prurient might gloat and become 
 eager for the next issue. The enjoyment found in this 
 exposure of the skeletons of other people was self-evident, 
 and was accompanied by a cheerful carelessness for the 
 sorrow and shame caused by such publicity to those 
 concerned. As for the real interests of the world or the 
 religious side of life, we took care, now and again, to 
 notice the melodramatic, so as to impress the masses 
 with the idea that we were deeply affected by higher 
 things, but in this connection our space was curtailed. 
 
 "I confess that there is something about your pres- 
 ence that makes me shudder at the possible result of 
 my ventures, and I am coming to the conclusion that 
 few have been so callous in poisoning their generation. 
 At the time, however, it was a joy to me that I accumu- 
 lated my thousands out of the coppers of the people, to 
 say nothing of such side issues as our connection with
 
 56 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 company promoters or with social enterprises on the 
 part of those not as yet arrived. We did a good trade 
 blackmailing many who were hopelessly in our toils and 
 were ready to pay any sum for our silence. Yet I trace 
 our main success to the murder of thought, to a combina- 
 tion of levity and lewdness, and to a careful admixture 
 of the sentimental with the sensual, whereby we obtained 
 a satanic empire of our own, until we prided ourselves 
 that the world could not do without our wares. In a 
 word," said the prisoner, who was on the verge of a col- 
 lapse, but who, with a supreme effort of will, managed to 
 regain his self-control, "I own without remorse that I 
 have sinned successfully, that the whole scheme origi- 
 nated with myself, and that I now await your decision 
 as to the future." 
 
 The advocate's position was an unenviable one as 
 he stood up to make his speech. The astonishing thing 
 was the perseverance of his love for the accused, and 
 there was a look of pain suggesting wonder lest he had 
 failed at times, through a natural shrinking, to fulfil 
 his office of protector and guide. He was comforted by 
 an upward glance at the Judge, as he called to mind the 
 quickening by Love of one who for four days had been 
 an object of revulsion. 
 
 "Conscious that I have but little to say, I make a 
 special appeal to your Lordship's mercy in a case where 
 the powers of darkness have made a peculiarly terrific 
 attack on a weak mortal. It is not for me to argue as 
 to the inequality of the onslaught, knowing as I do that, 
 had his eyes been opened, he would have seen that the
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 57 
 
 hosts on his side were greater than those by which he 
 was threatened. Your charity will take it into consider- 
 ation that he may be classed among those who were born 
 blind. I find it hard to explain or apologise for one 
 item of his cold conceding, though it is my duty to point 
 out that, even in his professional work, he found space 
 for the children and the unfortunate, being overcome 
 by attacks of generosity and kindness. Your obstinate 
 hopefulness, my Lord, alone prevents me throwing up my 
 brief. For the rest, I believe silence to be my best 
 course." 
 
 The face of the Judge was set like a flint, but with his 
 evident condemnation was blended compassion for the 
 unhappy man on whom he was about to pronounce 
 judgment. He, too, had plainly not forgotten the in- 
 cidents which had flashed across the mind of the advo- 
 cate, and at such a time it was consoling to feel that his 
 nature was proof against embitterment. Restraining 
 himself with a visible effort, he treated the prisoner with 
 special courtesy, as a man is apt to doff his hat in the 
 presence of a ruin. To a person like the Judge the 
 story to which he had listened brought nothing less than 
 anguish, not so much because of the sordid love of 
 gold which it breathed as of the ruthlessness manifested 
 throughout. He was thinking of a type which had best 
 be relegated to the sea with a millstone round its neck, 
 but none knew better than he that thousands would be 
 only too ready to step into the shoes of the offender. 
 
 The cowardice of the transaction was repellent to this 
 most guileless of men. Its treachery recalled the figure
 
 58 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 of a serpent, under which the arch enemy of mankind has 
 been known since the world began. In nearly every 
 instance brought before him there was at least a certain 
 risk to the agent, but the man with whom he was now 
 dealing had done his deadly work in the background, and 
 had shot his arrows from behind battlements. This 
 wounded him to the quick, but between him and too 
 hasty censure rose up the master mystery of election and 
 the truth that "a man was a man for a' that." 
 
 "I have been wondering as you spoke," said the Judge, 
 "how such a diabolical idea as that which gradually 
 took possession of you came into your head at the outset." 
 
 " So far as I can remember I had cruel tendencies as 
 a child, and was brought up in a home where each had to 
 fend for himself, so I suppose it made us all more or less 
 smart, and careless of the others." 
 
 "What was the actual condition of your parents?" 
 
 "I would rather not say, but I remember being filled 
 with the desire to alter my mother's position, to add to 
 her comforts, and make her a lady. My success came 
 too late, and this was the fly in my ointment." 
 
 "And your father?" 
 
 "I think we will let that question alone, please, as 
 we were never great friends." 
 
 "How did you get on with your brothers?" 
 
 "I don't know that I cared much about them at the 
 time, though since then I have done them plenty of good 
 turns, much as the Corsican added to his glory by making 
 several kings in his family." 
 
 "Had you any sisters to soften your life?"
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 59 
 
 "No, and I daresay it might have made a difference, 
 but our youth was a pretty hard one, and affection was 
 a minus quantity." 
 
 "And your schoolfellows?" 
 
 "We had to put up with a cheap school, as our father 
 had brought us down, and we rebelled against it. When 
 I was still a lad this filled me with spleen, and I swore 
 that I would have my revenge when I grew up." 
 
 "Would you say that this explained much of your 
 subsequent brutality, which is the only word I can find 
 to describe your methods? " 
 
 "I fancy it must. I can recall gnashing my teeth 
 when a four-in-hand passed and I knew that my invalid 
 mother had to go short." 
 
 "Has the scope of the wrong you have done, and the 
 demoralisation of your country by your actions since, 
 come home to you?" 
 
 "It stands to reason that I cannot see this in a mo- 
 ment, and if it had been apparent, bad as I am, I should 
 have shrunk from such a consequence. I begin to realise 
 the magnitude of my offence, though heaven knows I 
 never took it in before." 
 
 "Can you suggest any excuse for this murder of 
 thought which formed so great a part of your schemes?" 
 
 "When I was quite young I began to look on humanity 
 as merely a means of making my pile and leaving the 
 world one of its richest and, if possible, one of its best- 
 known men." 
 
 "Did you never quail at the thought of the boys and 
 girls who were thus rendered unable to face the tedium
 
 60 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 of home or to lead anything like a regular existence > 
 becoming dependent on the false excitement with which 
 you continually fed them?" 
 
 "Again I doubt if I ever considered the matter. All 
 I knew was that, judging from myself, the trick was to 
 make it appear like a show and to avoid such dry sub- 
 jects as virtue and duty, both of which I hated on my 
 own account, and credited others with the same in- 
 stincts." 
 
 "Did it not appear to you nothing less than devilish 
 to make capital out of others' shame and to expose 
 what, in your own case, you would wish to be buried 
 in the depths of the sea?" 
 
 "By the time I arrived at this point my heart must 
 have been more or less dried up, and, so long as our 
 sales went up, I cared not a fig who went down." 
 
 "Were you socially ambitious?" 
 
 "In a way, yes, but, whatever honours came to me, 
 I was out of my element in refined company." 
 
 "How do you think you will go down to history, an 
 expression suited to your pretensions?" 
 
 "There will be a blank page." 
 
 "What would your mother have said, if she had lived 
 longer?" 
 
 "Here at last you have done me. Thank God she 
 went early, so that she did not witness my triumph, 
 which she would have regarded as a defeat compared 
 to remaining in my own class, doing honourable work, 
 and being able to look the world in the face." 
 
 "Are you sorry?"
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 61 
 
 "What is the good of being sorry now, just because I 
 have no chance of doing the same again? But you have 
 made me want some sort of sentence which shall bring 
 back my self-respect and, however crushing it may be, 
 shall cause my heart to live, since, brute as I have be- 
 come, I would rather have one kiss from that mother 
 than all the thousands gotten at the expense of my 
 public." 
 
 The wisdom of the Judge, which, by kindness instead 
 of abuse, had brought the prisoner to the point that he 
 desired, was little short of miraculous. 
 
 "I am rilled," he said, "with deep sorrow for your 
 case, as much on account of the ruin you have caused 
 as on your own. That evil abounds and that it plays 
 havoc amongst men none can deny, nor can I explain 
 it myself; but of one thing I am convinced, namely, 
 that never has there been a human being but must have 
 heard a whisper warning him at the start that he was 
 wrong. Else I should not have occupied this seat, nor 
 undergone the training necessary to sympathise with 
 the most tragic instances that might come before me. 
 
 "You will forgive me if I lay stress upon the nefarious- 
 ness of your trade which allowed you, from masked bat- 
 teries, to achieve the destruction of your fellowmen. 
 It baffles me to understand the villainy which became 
 your delight. The more I ponder over what is perpe- 
 trated by you and your tribe, the more it is laid upon 
 me to intercede that such baseness may have an end. 
 Not that I believe you considered too nicely the injury 
 you were doing to others, so long as you benefited your-
 
 62 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 self, and no one between whom and his mother there 
 was the relationship of which you have spoken could 
 have been wholly bad. 
 
 " Though I have extracted more than one concession 
 from you, I doubt whether you have as yet taken in the 
 extent of the evil. Little do you know how you have 
 soiled your generation and have introduced into the 
 world a new set of temptations which hardly existed 
 before you were born. The retrospect of having lowered 
 the standpoint of millions must be ghastly to contem- 
 plate, and perhaps the most scathing sentiment I can 
 express is that you have added to the difficulties of 
 piety, and rendered prayer a subject for scorn. You 
 have been the enemy of the young, though you assumed 
 the role of their friend, but when, through being brought 
 up on your productions, they have acquired habits 
 which landed them in hell, it is people like you who ought 
 to pay the bill. 
 
 "You have asked for a sentence which shall restore to 
 you the childhood you have forfeited, and shall in some 
 degree atone for the egregious wrong you have committed. 
 In this you shall be gratified. You need a period of 
 passiveness, since all activity must for a while be both 
 fatal to yourself and injurious to your neighbour. Noth- 
 ing short of this can so chasten your personality as to 
 make it usable without harm to the community, and 
 you must yourself cry out: ' Give me milk,' like a sick girl, 
 before it will be safe for you again to dispense food for 
 the brain. An intense desire shall come to you to raise 
 the world in proportion as you have degraded it. You
 
 THE YELLOW PRESS 63 
 
 shall find yourself filled with a craving for souls whom 
 you shall daily witness under the dominion of the forces 
 you have called into being. You shall watch the mark 
 of crime on the faces of first offenders, due to the stuff 
 which you have purveyed. You shall be called to con- 
 sole many bowed down through shame at the disclosure 
 of some family disgrace, and your heart shall be broken 
 in your struggle against the same cruelty which stamped 
 your own career. You shall guess at the hell which you 
 have contributed to fill, and you shall find yourself 
 powerless in proportion as you have become a stranger 
 to gentleness or love the only weapons of any value 
 in this campaign. 
 
 "There is for you no other way, though you have made 
 it a steep and stony one. Until you have ceased from 
 avarice and until you have tasted some of the desolation 
 caused by the abuse of your talents, you cannot know 
 even the commencement of content. It is no pleasure 
 to me to inflict on you such pain, but, foreseeing the 
 result, it is my part to show you that only by godly re- 
 venge can you regain your virtue or achieve your goal. 
 That you will arrive there I have not a vestige of doubt, 
 and in its pursuit you will discover the true value of 
 your creativeness and your exceptional power, which I 
 pledge you shall have their full fruition. Nothing shall 
 daunt you in your new venture, and you shall thank 
 Heaven for the roughness of the path which it will have 
 become your joy to travel. No pardon can in itself 
 confer a habit or alter a nature, but from the place where 
 each left the right road he must start afresh and negoti-
 
 64 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 ate what remains. Be happier, then, than you have 
 been since you were a boy, guided by that star of your 
 love for your mother which will serve you in the darkest 
 and the longest night. Nor need you have the smallest 
 fear but that, by the discipline which I have outlined, 
 you shall become an advertisement of God's goodness. 
 Though the world may have had cause to hate you, 
 you shall win her smile."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PHILISTINE 
 
 A WELL-GROOMED, thoroughly healthy, and 
 uninteresting person took his seat, and some 
 mistake was suggested by his presence in such a 
 scene. Not that he would not have been called a good 
 fellow, a white man, a sportsman, and similar terms, 
 but his future was the more alarming since there was 
 nothing to go on. He left a sense of weariness, though 
 an importance was added to the figure by reason of the 
 multitudes who resembled him. Given a body, a tailor, 
 and a certain background, little more was needed for his 
 construction, and he set the onlooker searching for that 
 lerlium quid which differentiates the human from the 
 most attractive members of the animal world. The whole 
 thing was appallingly meaningless, and the Judge him- 
 self was likely to be hard put to it to save the situation 
 from bathos. 
 
 The attendance of this well-favoured, rather vacuous, 
 but withal nice individual at a trial fraught with eternal 
 issues would have been grotesque, had it not been sig- 
 nificant. A certain annoyance was caused by his good 
 looks, which implied nothing, and the entire lack of sor- 
 row in the Philistine was calculated to increase the 
 
 65
 
 66 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 sentiment. Of all this the accused was blissfully uncon- 
 scious, and his aimless glance failed to take in its true 
 import. The Philistine was mainly concerned with the 
 fit of his coat, the colour of his socks, and his general get- 
 up, which made his world. It was hard to think of 
 him except in batches. One recalled crowds like him 
 in the Park, or on a morning when the scent was good, or 
 gazing out of some club window with the same imper- 
 turbable smile. All said and done, it was a miserable 
 spectacle, more especially in view of the false romance 
 woven round him and his ilk, only to result in a fateful 
 fatigue, and often followed by desperate deeds due to 
 sickening disappointment. 
 
 "I should like to remark," he began, in the pleasantest 
 way, "how good it is of you to receive me so charmingly, 
 as I have often heard of you, and they tell me you are 
 a topper in your own line. Please don't think I mean 
 anything disrespectful, but that is a form of compliment 
 where I used to live, don't you know, with all the other 
 fellows. I fancy I am here to sort of reveal myself, but 
 the fact is I am a reserved kind of chap, and have been 
 taught to keep all that style of thing to myself, don't 
 you know." (Here the Judge asked him if he would 
 kindly not use the last phrase more often than was 
 necessary.) "Oh, certainly, I beg your pardon, I am 
 sure. You see I am not much of a speaker, but, since 
 I knew my turn was coming on, I have been trying to 
 collect materials, and have cudgelled my brains to find 
 out what sort of thing I ought to say. 
 
 "I feel sure you won't be over hard on a fellow who has
 
 THE PHILISTINE 67 
 
 spent his time mostly in the open and whose reading has 
 hardly been what you might call deep. My life on the 
 whole has been decent and comparatively clean, for I 
 was brought up awfully well, and could never get rid of 
 some instinct implanted by my mother. There was 
 no call for me to do anything particular, you see, but for 
 the most part I steered fairly straight, believed tre- 
 mendously in exercise, and, in a rough and ready way, 
 aimed at being a 'white man.' I can't say I allowed 
 this to interfere with a bit of pleasure now and then, or 
 that, if it meant a biggish effort, I took it too seriously, 
 but it became a part of my vocabulary and I constantly 
 trotted it out, especially to the admiration of my women 
 friends, who didn't understand it, but thought it very 
 fine. 
 
 "I saw most of the globe, or, rather, the surface of it, 
 and there were uncommonly few tricks I passed, but I 
 made it a rule never to neglect my health, as I believed 
 we were sent into the world in order to keep fit. I 
 fancy I must have done some good turns, if they came 
 my way; anyhow, I cannot call to mind any bad ones. 
 What I liked about the business was that I had an un- 
 limited number of friends, who were also awfully fit, so 
 there was no strain or high-f alutin' nonsense, which might 
 have made me ill. I also took great pains about my 
 food, holding that this item was exceedingly impor- 
 tant, and that a gentleman should always know how to 
 order a good dinner. Later in life I settled down, and 
 am glad to say that my wife, also, was uncommonly 
 fit. In a way we were awfully happy at first, but that
 
 68 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 kind of thing palls after a time, and I don't think I was 
 ever built for staying too much at home. 
 
 "I liked the people on my place more than I knew 
 till I had to say good-bye, for there was any amount of 
 good sorts among them, so that we became real pals. 
 The delightful part of it was that there was scarcely 
 any bother, as there was always enough to go round. 
 We all had a turn for the same kind of things, so there 
 grew up a good fellowship which was about all we wanted, 
 and made the time go like lightning. I need not dwell 
 on the temptations which come to a man with any go 
 in him; I managed them pretty carefully. As the 
 Missus knew nothing about them, and I still kept in 
 with the neighbouring clergy, who were capital fellows, 
 though not as fit as they might be, I expect you will agree 
 with me that it is absurd to pull a long face over trifles. 
 
 "I don't suppose I was ever dishonest in my life, but 
 I can't say what would have happened if I had been in 
 a tight place. I hope I should have played the game 
 and not forgotten the class to which I belonged. I was 
 a strong advocate of patriotism, and could not bear the 
 type of person who stirred up trouble, or allowed that 
 my country had any faults, or went so far as to suggest 
 an apology, even if we had made a bit of a mistake. I 
 always said the great thing was not to take it lying down, 
 to keep the wheels well oiled and, if you had a few ex- 
 tras, to share them, though everybody's first duty was 
 to look after number one. 
 
 "If I were to begin describing the sort of time I put 
 in, it might sound pretty uneventful, but I shouldn't
 
 THE PHILISTINE 69 
 
 mind having it over again. The thought of growing 
 old was my only bugbear, principally because it would 
 interfere with sport, and I should not be able to keep 
 up with the others as I used to. I don't think I have 
 much more to say, as I did not care greatly for politics, 
 except, of course, that I was on the gentlemanly side 
 and, if I had to choose where to go, it would be to much 
 the same old spot, which you'd find it hard to beat. 
 Meanwhile, I am real sorry if my story lacks colour, 
 but I never was clever, and thank God for it, though 
 if you could manage to let me join some of my pals, I 
 should be more than obliged, as I simply can't stand 
 being alone." 
 
 When the advocate was called upon to plead for the 
 Philistine he was much affected by his cheerfulness, and 
 found some difficulty in investing the occasion with 
 befitting solemnity. Yet as he proceeded no one who 
 heard the case but must have wept over the waste to 
 which it pointed. 
 
 "I rise, my Lord," he said, "to claim your indulgence 
 on behalf of the accused, who has within him finer possi- 
 bilities than he is aware of. I am conscious that the 
 host of the Philistines is legion and that, if reduced to 
 facts, they amount to hardly more than lizards in the 
 sun. I would lay the blame largely on his up-bringing, 
 and on the custom which prevails of allowing drones 
 to exist in the human hive. I believe the prisoner to 
 be ignorant of having offended in any one respect, and 
 that, if it had appeared wrong to him, he would not 
 have led such an apology for a life.
 
 70 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "The idea of leaving things undone which ought to 
 have been done did not enter his world, for he was a 
 member of that numerous class whose ethics are con- 
 fined to the negative commandments, notably that of 
 not being found out. It is true that even these he 
 lightly disregarded, when they proved inconvenient, but 
 from my knowledge of him I fail to see how he could 
 have become serious or have remained so for long. 
 Suffering as he did from good health, he was heavily 
 handicapped, and I hold that for him to be 'decently 
 straight and invariably pleasant ' was a bigger achieve- 
 ment than he suggests. I could mention countless 
 instances in which his care for animals afforded an ex- 
 ample to the intensely religious which they might well 
 lay to heart. In dealing with his fellows he may have 
 confined himself to such colloquialisms as 'poor old chap/ 
 but they were often accompanied by more practical 
 proofs of charity than many a meaningless 'God bless 
 you.' It is not easy for me to defend his attitude to- 
 wards the world at large, but he began by tackling his 
 local responsibilities with all the zeal of which he was 
 capable, though he handed over the major part of them to 
 those whom he could pay and who would see him through. 
 
 "When death threatened he was always to the fore, 
 and I am moved to tears when I think of him trying to 
 express himself at some dying bed or on the scene of 
 some accident. I own, my Lord, that the Philistine 
 was selfishness incarnate, and that, so long as he was 
 fairly comfortable, an earthquake might take place else- 
 where and his appetite would not be affected. But
 
 THE PHILISTINE 71 
 
 my memory goes back to a time when I see him risking 
 his life for his country and undergoing every conceiv- 
 able hardship, while he swore like a trooper that the 
 whole thing was a nuisance. It is these contrasts in the 
 man which touch me, and I cannot but wonder what 
 might have happened if he had broken his leg, or if he 
 had become enamoured of a good woman. (I leave it 
 for your Lordship to decide on the justice of such an 
 arrangement for the lady.) I am all too conscious of 
 the anti-climax presented by the case, but I beg you 
 in sentencing the prisoner to pass a judgment which 
 shall open a door of hope that his best qualities, up till 
 now nullified by comfort, may be brought into being. 
 I plead that none of the strength or charm or manners, 
 or, best of all, the brave brightness, may be lost, but 
 that, by some method known to yourself, they may effect 
 their purpose." 
 
 After the speech of the advocate, the man in the Judge 
 seemed to be struggling with the office, and it was fortu- 
 nate for the accused that he had come before such an un- 
 derstanding power. If looks could translate thoughts, an 
 open verdict was the most likely one, though philoso- 
 phy pointed to a long education before there could be 
 any satisfying result. The conversation preceding the 
 judgment threw a considerable light on the sentiments 
 both of questioner and questioned. The former, as 
 was his wont, touched on many matters which might 
 have been called irrelevant, but which plainly showed 
 that nothing short of getting at the root of the business 
 would content him.
 
 72 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Would you kindly inform me whether, in your early 
 youth, the inward meaning of things was brought before 
 you, or whether religion, as you understood it, was ob- 
 served in your home?" 
 
 "To the first query my answer is not at all, as things 
 went very smoothly, and I can recall no trouble worth 
 mentioning. As to the observance of religion, we car- 
 ried it on somehow, on the principle of good form, but all 
 emotion on the subject was absent and it was supposed 
 to be managed by the parson, or included in the school 
 fees." 
 
 "Did your parents never appear sad, or did they never 
 speak to you of prayer or details of that kind? " 
 
 "Heavens, no! I don't fancy they saw too much of 
 each other, as my father was generally out and my 
 mother was extremely reserved, so she might have gone 
 through a good deal without our knowing it." 
 
 "And your education? " 
 
 "I went to the best school, all right, and had a ripping 
 time, but of course I never got to the Sixth, or that sort 
 of thing." 
 
 "Did the masters show much interest in your de- 
 velopment?" 
 
 "They would not have taken such liberties or been 
 so familiar. They were good old sorts, though, and 
 played up well when a fellow got into a hat. At all 
 events, they brought us up never to tell a lie, and always 
 to play with a straight bat." 
 
 "Did you often get into what you call 'hats' at school?" 
 
 "Any amount, besides those which ought to have
 
 THE PHILISTINE 73 
 
 been worn by some of the other boys, but then they 
 were not particularly strong and would easily have gone 
 under." 
 
 "What did you learn?" 
 
 "Well, we didn't exactly go there to learn, but when 
 it came to the exams, we put on a spurt and now and 
 then one did rather well at a pinch." 
 
 "Have you remembered anything?" 
 
 "I doubt if I have, but all I can say is I'm awfully 
 grateful for the place, to which I owe a bigger debt than 
 I could put on paper, and I should be glad if you would 
 not say a word against what I look back to with tre- 
 mendous respect. I was rather a coward just now not 
 to own that the Head treated me with a tenderness I 
 shall never forget, and that he has been my secret hero 
 ever since." 
 
 "Were you deeply affected by the love affairs which 
 came to you in due course, and might more than once 
 have proved an awakening?" 
 
 "I can't say I was. I don't suppose either of us 
 wanted much, and the girls I cared for were of the same 
 sort as myself, while the others did not count." 
 
 "Did none of them leave any mark on your char- 
 acter?" 
 
 "I don't think they did. You see, we never took that 
 sort of thing seriously. We cared much more for hunt- 
 ing, and we were not a bit sentimental, though, of course, 
 flirting had its place in our amusements." 
 
 "And how did they get on afterwards?" 
 
 "Much the same, I fancy . They settled down all
 
 74 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 right when they happened on a fellow with money, or, 
 if they didn't, no one heard much about them." 
 
 "And when it came to marriage?" 
 
 "I took it in the natural course of things, though it 
 was a bit trying to say good-bye to my bachelor friends, 
 but they told me I should soon get over it." 
 
 "Did you love one another?" 
 
 "I should think that was too strong a term, but we 
 were first-class pals, and both of us read the same style of 
 books, which always ended in a capital show, with no 
 end of bridesmaids and the whole thing awfully well 
 done, so I suppose we knew it would have to come." 
 
 "As you grew older, what about the public duties to 
 which you were called by your position?" 
 
 "The fact is I rather let them slide, as they soon be- 
 came a bore; then I dropped them altogether, persuading 
 myself that this side could best be managed by the of- 
 ficials." 
 
 "Did it strike you that your body was getting the 
 upper hand, that there was something beyond, and that 
 a time was coming when you would have to face the 
 mystery which for you is just setting in?" 
 
 "Not in the least, really, but now I think of it, I did 
 make rather a point of comfort as to baths and clothes 
 and food, and I was awfully particular as to associating 
 with anybody sort of halfway. As to death, I expected 
 when it came along I should take my gruel all right 
 and stand the shot, but otherwise I cannot say it weighed 
 much with me." 
 
 "Were you never heartily ashamed as you looked at
 
 THE PHILISTINE 75 
 
 the pictures of your ancestors and wondered whether 
 you would be worthy of where they had come?" 
 
 "Hardly ever, though possibly I used to dream things 
 like that in a comfortable sort of way, after two or three 
 nightcaps, or when I was a trifle hipped, but I was all 
 right next morning." 
 
 "And as for this country, this world of yours, this 
 mass of men and women under the harrow in big cities, 
 or the cruelty and lust you must have witnessed in 
 your journeys abroad did these things never cause 
 your heart to ache?" 
 
 "I can't say they did. Don't you see if I had allowed 
 what you call sympathy to come into my life, on a large 
 scale, I should have had to become quite another sort 
 of chap. All my arrangements would have been up- 
 set, and, worst of all, I should have been considered 
 half a lunatic or a ranter, which is too dreadful to con- 
 template. Besides, to be candid, all this went like 
 water off a duck's back, though, politically, I realised, 
 now and again, that things were getting a little warm, 
 but, so long as they lasted out my time, I couldn't see 
 how it mattered." 
 
 The Judge looked almost hopeless, yet he regarded 
 the accused with wistful affection, for he had had great 
 possessions. " I wish, if I can, to point out to you what 
 I know you entirely appreciate, in spite of anything 
 you may say to the contrary. I willingly overlook 
 the clothes, the baths, the dinners, the eternal round 
 of self-pleasing, but your insensibility in regard to the 
 universal pain angers me by its shallowness and its
 
 76 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 hardness of heart. Who knows better than myself how 
 richly endowed you were when you came into the world? 
 Who understands better the responsibility of birth, tra- 
 dition, and all that goes to make good breeding, with 
 hardly any trouble on the part of the recipient? Who 
 could hold in higher esteem the delightful absence of 
 caste and class which distinguished you, and which is 
 the hall-mark of the gentle? Who can better estimate 
 the advantage of good health, and still more, of good 
 spirits, which if rightly used might have acted like magic 
 among the sick, the tired, the unfortunate, and the lonely? 
 
 "To my thinking you have missed immense oppor- 
 tunities, and the pity of it is that you could not see it, 
 though, if you had, you would have been the first to 
 volunteer for the forlorn hope which was calling out 
 for your qualities. Man was never intended to be 
 satisfied with a purely carnal life, however perfect the 
 setting! It has to be borne in on you that strength is a 
 loan, that easy circumstances may soon prove the ruin 
 of a man's best, and that that brain of yours, which is 
 not half so poor a one as you allege, was meant to tackle 
 problems in the solving of which each citizen should 
 take his share. The truth, in brief, which you must 
 absorb, is that the object of your creation was not to 
 bask, but to bless through that unused heart given you 
 in order to warm the world. 
 
 "You will therefore leave this place judged by your- 
 self and no one else, and though the vision will come to 
 you sooner than to most, you must learn through tribu- 
 lation what it is to love. Some day, when you have
 
 THE PHILISTINE 77 
 
 come to care, it will grow clear to you that your kingdom 
 consists of more than eating and drinking or satisfying 
 your inclinations, with a certain amount of kindness 
 thrown in. Otherwise you would become a fossil. You 
 will then discover that the sin of having accomplished 
 nothing may be worse than active evil commingled 
 with good, and you will look back with contempt on 
 a period of self-pleasing which cannot be condoned 
 by mannerisms or fine phrases. You will understand by 
 degrees that your talk of patriotism was vitiated 
 by your indolence, and that devotion to your country 
 carries with it a great deal more than willingness to 
 share in a scrap. For this and sundry other exhibitions 
 you have already been rewarded by medals and deified 
 by sentimental women. 
 
 "You must go back to those high ideals implanted in 
 you by your mother, whose aloneness was due to the 
 same sort of character in your father as you have de- 
 scribed in yourself. If you had only known it, she often 
 prayed for you in her silence, and longed for you to 
 develop into something worth while. True enough that 
 the masters at your school seldom, if ever, in a place re- 
 served for the so-called fortunate, touched on such themes, 
 but when you know what it is to bend your back to 
 honest work, and when you have discovered that noth- 
 ing was ever accomplished without pains, you will envy 
 the labourers who furnish an example of days spent 
 in toil followed by well-earned repose. You need to 
 get hold of the injury done to the young, which appar- 
 ently has never entered into your mind. You can have
 
 78 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 no conception of the boys or of the young men who were 
 copying you throughout your career, a habit which 
 obtains in proportion to lack of brains or of necessity. 
 Your very tailor was a temptation, and your casualness 
 repeated itself in hundreds who are now worshipping 
 the same style and emulating the same ease afforded 
 by your example. Doubtless your own failure was 
 modelled on a similar type, but when the pattern is 
 both wrong and attractive, no one can compute the 
 misfits which follow. You are too generous not to be 
 cut to the quick by such reflections, and you would be the 
 first, if the opportunity offered, to correct such an error. 
 
 "You have no reason, in spite of a revelation which 
 opens up to you a novel view of existence, to fall into 
 the other extreme of despondency. You possess more 
 than ordinarily good material, and I am sanguine that 
 you will, to use your own expression, ' take your gruel, ' 
 nor rest until, in place of a materialist, you become 
 even a spiritual force which, without a vestige of 'rant- 
 ing, ' shall help instead of hindering the ' other fellows, ' 
 to your common good. Go, then, and make your own 
 arrangements, as befits your manliness, and act out 
 those dreams in which you indulged when you were 
 rather hipped, or tricked by alcohol into seeing visions 
 of what you might become. The prayers of that mis- 
 understood, taken-for-granted, and neglected mother shall 
 be answered in the fulness of time, and with the 'Head' 
 she will rejoice over her boy on his return from the far- 
 off country. No one will do better work or take it out 
 of himself more when he gets back to the old farm."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 
 
 SHE looked dog tired and glad to have found at 
 last any sort of place where there was peace, 
 though it was one of punishment. The only 
 thing she appeared to want was to be done with it all and 
 to get it over, being best described as a bird which had 
 spoilt its plumage by beating against the bars and now 
 lay exhausted at the bottom of the cage. Her face, 
 badly marred, had once been beautiful, and her previous 
 charm was apparent as she impulsively stood up and 
 jerked out her words with nervous hesitation combined 
 with a half defiance, betokening the final struggle be- 
 fore she yielded. The tricks of her trade revealed them- 
 selves in the smallest action, telling of a type which, from 
 Aspasia to the street-walker, has a cachet common to all. 
 Her origin had always been more or less of a mystery, 
 and so accustomed had she become to romancing about 
 it, to suit the occasion, that any trustworthy evidence 
 had long been lost in a mist of lies. By turns she had 
 been the daughter of a clergyman, of an honest farmer, 
 or of a peer conspicuous for gallantry, and more than 
 once she had scored by claiming the protection granted 
 to an innocent but illegitimate girl. Probably the truth 
 
 79
 
 8o THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 was that she belonged to a large class which combines 
 a certain amount of money with still more vulgarity, 
 but there was a streak of refinement in her of which 
 she was conscious, due to previous irregularities. On 
 this point she was not pressed by the Judge, who 
 made it a rule to admit no reference to the detriment 
 of an absentee, having no use for the third party. Her 
 attitude was that of a woman for whom nothing mat- 
 tered, being less pugnacious than beaten, and it was dif- 
 ficult, having once seen it, to forget the melancholy and 
 glazed look in her eyes. It was a relief to find herself 
 alone, where there were no chivying, no bestial language, 
 and none of that confusion to which she had of late been 
 accustomed. 
 
 Yet the very silence was a torture to her, as though 
 she loathed the solitude for which she craved, and any- 
 thing more pitiable than the moral wreck she presented 
 it would be hard to imagine. The word desolation con- 
 veyed the most vivid picture of her expression, the soul 
 having fled away, without the solace of annihilation. 
 Never was there such a satire on her name. Any halo 
 there might have been had long disappeared, and the 
 process which must have led up to such a climax became 
 disgusting and repulsive. What the blurting out of the 
 unvarnished truth meant to the Daughter of Joy only 
 she could tell, but the working of her features plainly 
 showed the effect of this interview with herself. Dog- 
 gedness and obstinacy were conspicuous. She displayed 
 the unfeeling tyranny which had encrusted her heart 
 through trading on human weakness and taking a brutal
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 81 
 
 advantage of situations. Gradually a comparative soft- 
 ness, which brought hope of tears, set in as she looked at 
 the Judge, though as yet not a word had been spoken. 
 
 "I should like," she said, in her restless way, as one 
 who is always in a hurry because she has nothing definite 
 to do, "to say that I have no excuse, and that the blame 
 belongs to no one else. I was never drugged or de- 
 coyed, and then found myself unable to get back, or 
 any fairy tales of that kind. From the beginning I 
 realised what I was doing and deliberately chose the 
 vilest, cruellest, and most selfish life under the sun. 
 Naturally, at the start, I merely pleased myself, without 
 stopping to consider the wickedness involved, which, 
 when I was old enough to understand it, had not the least 
 effect on me. From the time I knew anything, my in- 
 stinct was to get as much feeling and zest into my days 
 as possible. I can justify myself on no plea except 
 that home was dull, goodness still duller, and work 
 most repellent of all. By keeping my eyes open, it came 
 to me that any girl, if she pleased, might ruin men and 
 live upon them, provided the bird of prey was suf- 
 ficiently attractive. I watched thousands of others who 
 avoided all restraint and who seemed, at any rate, 
 to be having a rosy time, which was all I cared about. 
 Before I was out of my teens this idea got hold of me, and 
 my motto was self first, and the devil take the hinder- 
 most. He has taken them, too. 
 
 "I can see now that I broke my mother's heart, 
 brought shame on all belonging to me, and began my 
 career by laughing in the face of God. The books which
 
 82 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 say that this happens through a girl being betrayed and 
 then taking her revenge may be partially correct but 
 are much overdrawn, and in my case it was not the true 
 story. It may be so in countless instances, but my firm 
 conviction is that the person who wrote the story of the 
 Garden of Eden was not far out. Certainly, for the most 
 part, women do the tempting, at least in man's first down- 
 fall, though, thank Heaven, this applies to the Eves and not 
 to the Maries of the world. It doesn't always hold good, 
 though, for there are lots of men who are women, and 
 women who are men, which may sound strange, but they 
 got into the wrong bodies. The taint was in my blood, 
 nor did I pause to think whether it was impure or other- 
 wise. That side never struck me; I was out for my own 
 pleasure, which, to an extent, I got at the price of 
 some one else's pain. Conceit, vanity, and sloth had 
 been my chief make-up so long as I could remember. 
 
 "I cannot recall taking up anything seriously, except 
 with a view to producing an effect on the rest of the 
 family, but I was an actress from the time I began to 
 talk. I detested effort, especially any form of educa- 
 tion, and, if conscience stirred in its sleep, I silenced it 
 with bad company, worse plays, and still more degraded 
 literature, though as yet I had not crossed the border- 
 line. One thing stands out, namely, that I never could 
 abide staying at home or being by myself, and long 
 before I had lost my innocence, I was mentally a prey 
 to movement, fine clothes, and excitement. When I 
 was at school, I used to get the other girls under my 
 thumb and deceive the mistress by pretending to depths
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 83 
 
 which none but she could sound. When I flirted with 
 boys, I was never touched, but I liked to make them 
 miss me and send me messages which I might bring 
 up against them. 
 
 "After the first step, I set myself, by every art I pos- 
 sessed, to drag men down, and found a special fillip in 
 the case of the good though erotic, making them fancy 
 that love could be bought and that my endearments 
 were genuine. They proved a simple affair, the temp- 
 tation to them being tenfold stronger than to the aban- 
 doned woman, and what for them constituted a terrific 
 brain storm was for me a matter of routine. There 
 were hundreds who began by sincerely desiring to save 
 me, and whom I deliberately seduced in their attempt, 
 which brings up some of my most painful memories, 
 but I am bound to add that the nicest men are awfully 
 weak towards our class, being kind to us out of all pro- 
 portion. It is this weakness which is our chief stock 
 in trade. In reality, save in these cases, I was unmoved, 
 nor did I care a fig so long as I provoked passions and 
 secured my reward. How I could have done what I 
 did fairly puzzles me, but it is impossible here to deny 
 facts, or to pretend that I was not one of the worst 
 enemies of mankind. 
 
 "I spoiled the legitimate happiness of good women 
 whom at the same moment I hated and envied, lower- 
 ing my sex in their eyes until they were ashamed of 
 belonging to it. The thought of my mother, especially 
 after her death, stung me into a remorse that drove me 
 well-nigh mad, I was haunted by the faces of young
 
 84 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 men, hardly more than boys, who, through my devilish 
 treachery, had forfeited their honour and their health 
 so that they could not look into the eyes of their sis- 
 ters, or of their intended brides. This sounds too horri- 
 ble, even for a confession, but the game goes on, and 
 thousands upon thousands of men, as well as women, 
 are being ruined every night, to the tune of the gayest 
 music and the scent of the sweetest flowers. 
 
 "Well do I remember the jewels heaped upon me by 
 these worse than fools so long as my beauty lasted, 
 though, as it waned, I fell lower and lower. Yet my 
 instincts remained the same, and were even intensified, 
 namely, to secure the maximum of sensation with the 
 minimum of effort, at the expense of any one who was 
 willing to foot the bill. When I had lost my looks and 
 was hungry I learned the cruel side of men, for they 
 treated me as dirt, or recommended the workhouse, 
 because I could no longer please. As to physical fear, 
 it had ceased to affect me, since I had got to look on 
 life much as a hardened gambler does on the tables, 
 where all have equal chances, where the risks add to 
 the charm, and where the bank is bound to win in the 
 long run. Anything aboveboard or lawful became in- 
 sipid, and I accuse myself of having done my best to 
 help forward the kingdom of evil and prevent that of 
 good. 
 
 "In one respect, at all events, I got full payment: I 
 lost the power of loving, forfeited the joy of giving one 
 honest kiss, though I received many, and banished for- 
 ever the vision of home and motherhood. I stand
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 85 
 
 here, ruined, degraded, and the wretchedest of women, 
 had I not become so numbed that I hardly feel at all. 
 The sense of shame is setting in, and with it the taste of 
 a hell to which I would not consign my worst enemy. I 
 only ask to be dealt with quickly so that I may live 
 again in working out the punishment I crave for, which 
 I have brought upon myself." 
 
 The prisoner's advocate was deeply moved, and with 
 unconcealed emotion addressed the Judge. He felt the 
 far-reaching character of the tale that had been told, 
 and the truth that, as woman can rise to higher heights, 
 she can fall to lower depths than man. The awful fact 
 of the liberty of free will was forcibly brought home to 
 him. In this special connection he understood how 
 powerless was any appeal in face of the cruelty of pros- 
 titution practised on business principles and in defiance 
 of conscience. Yet he held his head high, like a man 
 engaged in a crusade on behalf of weakness, and of a 
 type regarding whom, being a person of refinement, 
 he found it difficult to decide whether it had most sinned 
 or been sinned against in the transaction. He did not 
 disguise from himself the gravity of the sex question, 
 or that he was getting into close grips with undoubtedly 
 the strongest of the forces, which, at a certain period, 
 move humanity. 
 
 "In spite of the prisoner's confession, and of the untold 
 harm which I cannot conceal from myself that she has 
 done, I rise, my Lord, to claim your pity. It will not 
 surprise you to hear that there is another side which she 
 has either forgotten or taken for granted, but which,
 
 86 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 none the less, qualifies her degradation. I can tell you of 
 acts of kindness, and even tenderness, on the part of 
 the accused rarely found among the virtuous. Times 
 without number I have witnessed the sharing of her last 
 meal with a still poorer sister, and I can think of her 
 sitting up ten nights without intermission with a dying 
 man whom all neglected and who was an entire stranger 
 to her. A rich man with whom she lived offered her 
 marriage three times, but she refused because she would 
 not spoil his chances and because she said it was not 
 cricket. Some redeeming features there must have been 
 when he implored her to be his wife, though twice, in a 
 fit of drunkenness, she had nearly brought about his 
 death, and more than once had treated him with every 
 indignity. 
 
 "Again, my Lord, I can see her risking her life, during 
 an epidemic, and nursing children so covered with con- 
 fluent smallpox that ninety-nine out of a hundred would 
 have fled, and kissing them, too, with an abandonment 
 well-nigh divine. I have heard her offer to defend her 
 mother's name with her life, if it was disparaged in the 
 smallest particular. I could recount how, again and 
 again, the prisoner, in fits of reaction, haunted churches, 
 knelt before altars, made resolves, and was on the verge 
 of becoming penitent, but the seven devils took posses- 
 sion of her once more and she became as desperate as 
 ever. It is not for me to suggest how different her story 
 might have been if her instincts had been earlier com- 
 bated, and if, in her youth, she had known honourable 
 love.
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 87 
 
 "Your Lordship is aware how poor a brief I hold, but, 
 though I cannot prove it, I still assert that the heart of 
 this woman had particles of good and that she was cap- 
 able of exceptional heroism in any work of rescue. Noth- 
 ing can help her short of a great trust born of a great 
 charity, which, through the darkest night, can discern 
 the coming of a brighter day for her and her sorrowful 
 sisterhood. Such a sympathy is impossible to any save 
 yourself, for it demands a holiness of which few are capa- 
 ble, and which, in itself, among ordinary men, precludes 
 the experience requisite to measure the difficulties of the 
 prisoner. I can at least urge that she has given no hint 
 that she was virtually driven from home, where she 
 might have had every comfort, but where she felt she 
 was not wanted, which was the prime cause of the deba- 
 cle that followed. Then it was that the demon entered 
 into her and, tortured by a treadmill to her unendur- 
 able, she became a temptress and a pest to society, 
 sooner than find no vent for an individuality which 
 would not be denied. The grief she has endured, which 
 she accepts without a murmur, pleads for her more 
 eloquently than any words of mine. 
 
 "In view of the consummate folly of her choice, and 
 her persistent refusal of appeal after appeal to her own 
 interests, I can only regard her as morally insane, and 
 ask you to treat her as one bereft of reason. That she 
 was bad as well as mad, and that she became cruel as the 
 grave, no one can gainsay, but I entreat your pity for her 
 because I am more conscious even than she of her dualism, 
 and that, if this torrent of recklessness could be diverted,
 
 88 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 it might be used as power to light those who sit in dark- 
 ness and in a similar shadow of death. More I cannot 
 add, lest I should appear to palliate this worst of wrongs, 
 or by a single syllable furnish an excuse for such a career. 
 I am confident that, taking into account the handicap 
 afforded by her distorted nature, in the sentence to be 
 pronounced mercy and truth will meet together." 
 
 The Judge was troubled beyond measure and, as was 
 his custom, conversed with the prisoner for a while be- 
 fore arriving at his decision, treating her as he would 
 have done any other lady. When he asked her the cause 
 of her leaving home, she still refused to say one word 
 against her mother, but maintained that it was just a 
 whim of her own, because she wanted to see the world 
 and drain the cup of life to the dregs. 
 
 When the Judge enquired if she considered her trade 
 a necessity, quoting the opinion of several writers of re- 
 pute that it was the oldest in the world and could not be 
 stamped out, she answered that she had never studied the 
 subject. In her own case and, she believed, in that of 
 every woman in her country, whatever the conscience 
 elsewhere, each wilfully violated what she knew to be 
 the highest law of her being, nor did she wish to escape 
 by the back door of such a pretext. 
 
 On his referring to the economic conditions which were 
 by many held responsible, seeing that fear of starvation 
 is calculated to drive its victim to any lengths, the 
 Daughter of Joy owned that in many instances it might 
 be so, and that it was a crying shame. She herself 
 would rather have starved than have yielded, save for
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 89 
 
 an inborn tendency to evil and to adventure, which she 
 could not attribute to necessity. 
 
 To the suggestion made, with singular respect, by the 
 Judge, that, having once gone under, she was irretriev- 
 ably ruined, the prisoner retorted that again and again 
 she might have pulled up if she had wished, that hun- 
 dreds of hands were outstretched to save her, and that 
 harbours of refuge abounded on every side. She went 
 so far as to say that, after the worst collapses, she had 
 heard most clearly the voices of the angels and had 
 caught the rustle of their wings. 
 
 The Judge desired to know how she reconciled her 
 fiendish cruelty towards men, more especially to the 
 young, with her care for the sick, her sympathy with 
 the starving, and her recklessness in risking her life, to 
 which her only reply was that she took a devilish pleas- 
 ure in the former, while (illogically) she supposed that 
 no woman could have done other than she did in the 
 latter case, and that there was nothing in it. 
 
 When, lastly, he asked the prisoner if she ever re- 
 gretted the loss of her innocence, the miss of a child, 
 the pleasure of a garden, the sparkle of the sea, or the 
 shining of the stars, she broke down. Over her face 
 came a look from the past which showed that she loved 
 all these things in common with the best and that, 
 through the recalling of them, a faint desire was born 
 to return and be good. 
 
 The Judge summed up in terms which betrayed his 
 commiseration : 
 
 "Neither do I condemn you," he said, "seeing that
 
 90 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 no one who has ever been a man can cast a stone. You 
 need no reminding how much you have suffered or how 
 much you have lost. I respect you, also, for not pos- 
 ing as a martyr, while your silence concerning others 
 points to the regaining of qualities you have done your 
 best to destroy. The misery caused by the desecration 
 of your womanhood must ever remain and, tenderly 
 as my heart goes out to your need, no sentence of mine 
 can absolve you from that process of cleansing for which, 
 despite your protestations, I know that you yearn. To 
 have used outpourings of love, written in good faith, 
 to the stabbing of another, is an act which the best, 
 even in your profession, would utterly despise. Sudden, 
 sustained goodness after such sinning can never be, how- 
 ever much pity may be inclined to point out an easier 
 way. It might be alleged that you have already had 
 your hell and have paid the penalty for the injury you 
 have done, but the evil lies deeper, and this Court is 
 not concerned with rewards or punishments, as is often 
 misstated by those who claim to know its secrets. 
 
 "You never can and never will be happy until you 
 have regained your sex, but, to this end, you must 
 learn that your brain and your soul are vastly more 
 important than your flesh. This is the root of the error 
 which has ruined your character, apart from the special 
 department of evil in which you have been employed. 
 According to your own confession, you have consistently 
 avoided the slightest suspicion of work, therefore you 
 will be taught its true value and for you a harder 
 task you will be compelled to think. It will prove a
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOY 91 
 
 severer struggle than the nursing, the sharing, and the 
 risk, which are but the better side of passion itself. 
 The labour that lies before you is your development into 
 an intelligent being; it will follow that you become a self- 
 respecting one. You will hate it beyond imagining; 
 your old emotions, not yet under complete control, will 
 drive you to rebel against restraint, and the path of 
 penance will seem too narrow for your wayward feet. 
 Sights and sounds of former days will return to you in 
 your dreams. You will crave for the God you have 
 insulted, and thirst for the vision of chastity as for water 
 in the desert. 
 
 "I could not, if I wished, save you from the haunt- 
 ings of memory, but, in proportion as you persevere, 
 they will fade away and your indeterminate sentence 
 be shortened. You will remain in a prison of my selec- 
 tion until you have been purified, and have fitted your- 
 self to atone not so much for your vileness as for your 
 lack of love. No consolation on my part can lessen 
 the agony of at last knowing yourself in your true colours, 
 but even this shall have an end, and the scarlet shall 
 become white as snow. Of one thing be certain, that 
 the best in you, however hidden, shall emerge, and that 
 the flashes of good which illuminated the blackness of 
 your sky shall become a permanent glow. 
 
 "Therefore, be comforted and leave this Court for 
 your retreat, confident, as I am, that those seven devils 
 shall be duly exorcised. To rule and to dare is too 
 much part of your identity to disappear, and you shall 
 become the slave of a new unrest to save the tempted
 
 92 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 at the risk of a character now restored. You shall use 
 your wiles to catch others by guile, but no longer for 
 your own delectation, and you shall dominate, not by 
 fascination, but by humility. Your changed atmosphere 
 shall declare that the wisdom from above is first pure, 
 and if asked your reason, your face shall be sufficient 
 argument. When you see, as you shall, the cup of 
 so-called life being drained to the dregs, your mere look 
 will cause many to hesitate, though by others you shall 
 be hooted for the thing you were. The value of your 
 recklessness shall be shown, and you shall mind nothing 
 so long as the stolen evidence of passionate but genuine 
 devotion may be burnt in a fire of your own kindling. 
 Courage, my child, and when your hour is come, seven 
 angels shall take the place of those seven devils and 
 waft you to the abode of Perfect Love, where your 
 transformed passions shall be expressed, not in sin, but 
 in submission. The Daughter of Joy shall yet sing as 
 in the days of her youth, and shall be known as one 
 who lives not to blight but to bestow it."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE AGITATOR 
 
 HIS appearance was the reverse of prepossessing, 
 but he aroused a keen interest in view of the 
 vastness of the mischief for which he stood, as 
 also of the wrong he would have claimed it was his role 
 to rectify. The most striking features about the Agi- 
 tator were his conceit and his masterfulness, which were 
 not surprising as he could never have attained his posi- 
 tion without them. The absence of the pathos which 
 might have been looked for and his gaiety under the 
 circumstances created unalloyed disgust. He was moved 
 more by pride than by pity, and in this separator of 
 friends was a faint picture of the force which works for 
 the division of mankind. The worst of it was there was 
 so much to go on, but none the less did his trade, for it 
 was a trade, appear abhorrent while he sat there as though 
 the world belonged to him, and he had but to say the 
 word to affect the destinies of thousands. 
 
 That he could be put on his trial at all was for him 
 an absurdity, and the curl of his lip told of unmitigated 
 scorn. Gradually be became influenced by his sur- 
 roundings, and began to show a hesitation and an un- 
 certainty in himself which were the prelude to novel 
 
 93
 
 94 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 concessions. His undeniable fearlessness called forth 
 something akin to admiration as he began his confession 
 with the air of one who meant to have it out fair and 
 square, Judge or no Judge, so long as he might express 
 his overweening impudence. 
 
 "Had I been consulted," he said, "I should not have 
 come here, for it is my rule never to climb down, lest 
 I should cease to gain the confidence of the crowds who 
 hang on my lips. There is, however, something about 
 this place that threatens to bring me off my perch, 
 which would be impossible if any one else were present. 
 My contention is that I have tried to do my duty by 
 those whose cause I represented, and to undo some of 
 the evils arising from inequalities and thraldoms which 
 are a curse among human beings, and which I cannot 
 believe you yourself approve. Originally I was a worker 
 and suffered with the rest, though the iron had already 
 entered into my soul. When I was a kid I had seen 
 my mother go without bread, and the little ones at home 
 fall sick, without any comfort or extra nourishment. 
 A great hatred took possession of me, and I made a 
 vow that, should I live to become a man, it would not 
 be my fault if I did not have my revenge. 
 
 "Having more than my share of brains, I studied 
 hard in my leisure moments, practised speaking on 
 every possible occasion, and took a delight in listening 
 to the orators who came among us and inflamed us 
 with their words. I learned my trade so as to be able 
 to talk from my book, and never lost sight of my object, 
 nor was it long before I laid down my tools to become
 
 THE AGITATOR 95 
 
 a leader of my fellows against their oppressors. Not 
 that I was lazy or that, in the early stages, I was affected 
 by money, but as my sphere grew larger, I suppose I 
 was lured by the very thing I was combating, and talked 
 so much and so often of having been a working-man 
 that I forgot I had ceased to be one. The whole affair 
 became a business to me, and I defy any one to be able 
 to move the masses without being more or less drunk 
 with domination, the only liquor strong enough for 
 those who have once tasted it. In my rough way I 
 believed in God, but He was more political than paternal, 
 and so insistent was I on the word Justice that it eclipsed 
 the word Love. I quoted the Gospel galore, or rather 
 those bits that suited me, for my education had been 
 a prejudiced one, and I should have been a failure had 
 I owned to the reverse of the shield. The fact is that 
 party spirit was as strong with us as in Parliament, 
 and a leader who was honest enough to argue all round 
 would have found himself between two stools, and have 
 been distrusted by both sides. 
 
 "This was not my game. After having for years 
 advocated the cause of the poor and of the worker, I 
 ceased to believe such a thing existed as that of the 
 wealthy, or that there was any possible plea for leisure. 
 I own with regret that the influence of this attitude on 
 myself was to the bad, and that I ended a much less 
 kind man, for, though I was death on drink and wor- 
 shipped virtue, strange to say I was nearer Heaven when 
 I was more natural. I began to loathe the mention 
 of peace and, if the chances of a strike were in the air,
 
 96 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 my colleagues (I had given up using the word mates) 
 and I met together to devise how we might stir up strife, 
 so that there should be more wigs on the green, and 
 lest we should lose our pay. 
 
 "As for my country, it might go to hell unless possessed 
 by the working classes, for I was too much soaked with 
 every story bearing on revolution to care a curse so long 
 as the red flag was triumphant. I associated only with 
 those who had a grievance, till it became a positive 
 pleasure to fan it into a flame, though who should put 
 out the fire, or what damage might ensue, never oc- 
 curred to me. Governments didn't count, kings didn't 
 count, women didn't count, children didn't count if only 
 I loomed large in the canvas, and I remember how I 
 gloated over the speeches made at gigantic assemblies, 
 but I read only my own. 
 
 "There is my story and I am angry still, but my wrath 
 was less personal than professional, or rather it was so 
 confused with my own advancement that it is difficult 
 to decide whether it was real or fictitious. A vein of 
 bluntness in me, apart from compulsion, prompts me 
 to speak out and, struck by the kindness of your face, 
 I am bold to believe that you will not condemn me whole- 
 sale. Wherein I know that I have erred is that my 
 motives were not unmixed, but, whatever the suffering 
 involved, I cannot take back a word in regard to the 
 horrors to which I have referred. If you would help 
 me back to the sanity of my boyhood, and if the ex- 
 ample of my punishment would restrain those who follow 
 me from forsaking their early inspiration to do battle,
 
 THE AGITATOR 97 
 
 within legal limits, for their hearths and homes, any 
 price which I might have to pay would be cheap. I 
 should even esteem it a clear gain and should not utter 
 a single complaint." 
 
 The advocate, who was more or less inspired by the 
 Agitator's tone, displayed no feelings of abhorrence, 
 but, on the other hand, not a vestige of sentimentality. 
 "I cannot conceal from myself," he said, "the untold 
 harm of which the accused appears to be guilty, but I 
 use the term appears, seeing that the fault is mainly 
 due to an upheaval over which he had less control than 
 he imagined, and which is by no means the worst feature 
 in the world's evolution. No one will be readier than 
 your Lordship to concede that the chronic pain existing 
 among the many through the iniquitous selfishness of the 
 few calls for channels whereby the crowd may express its 
 collective opinion and demand common justice. This man 
 was one of such spokesmen, and I speak with more inti- 
 mate knowledge of him than many of my brother advo- 
 cates have had of prisoners who were better placed. 
 
 "He saw, and with good reason, that the salvation of 
 the poor rested chiefly with themselves, and that, if they 
 were united for a single end, they could do much to bring 
 about, not a millennium, but at least a division of goods 
 more becoming amongst the children of a common 
 Father. Like many others, he became angered that a 
 huge proportion of the race should labour in sweat and 
 grime for a minority who lived in luxury and revelled in 
 self-pleasing from one year's end to another. Your 
 Lordship will therefore discount the prisoner's lack of
 
 98 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 logic in that he failed to perceive that work brings its 
 peculiar reward, and self-indulgence its own scourge. It 
 is not to be wondered at that he saw only the outside, and 
 could not grasp the fact that poverty with contentment is 
 great gain. When I said that I knew him well, I meant 
 that I have often met with him at his Chapel, and at 
 times when he was so distressed by the issues at stake 
 that he became for me more lovable than many a holier 
 man who had never done a round turn for the oppressed. 
 This man was no debauchee, having his passions under 
 strong control, nor did he do this, as he alleged, only to 
 keep his place, but there was a fund of religion in him and 
 his mother went far to keep him pure. This was how he 
 began, and then, in his very effort to keep his nature 
 under restraint, he became impervious to the groaning 
 and travailing which is the lot of all creation, and which 
 continues up till now. To him it appeared otherwise; 
 this groaning and travailing was sectional and, seeing 
 it mainly in his mother and the 'kids' (his father had 
 been fatally injured in an accident when drunk), he lost all 
 sense of proportion and ran the risk of becoming a brute. 
 
 "You will, I am certain, make allowances for the con- 
 sequent deterioration which was fostered by the lurid 
 creed of his childhood, with plenty of flames and sulphur 
 thrown in, to which the local preacher relegated those 
 who fed on the fat of the land. This man, my Lord, 
 would have been altogether different if he had had a 
 sweetheart, but he denied himself in order to see his 
 mother through and to bring up the rest of the family. 
 I hold that, granted such an intention, he deserves ample
 
 THE AGITATOR 99 
 
 consideration, and that the same dangerous fanaticism 
 will always exist so long as those who have been nurtured 
 in the gentler ways of the Gospel keep themselves to 
 themselves and meet fine enthusiasm with ill-disguised 
 contempt. The prisoner became an agitator only by 
 degrees, nor would he have deserved the title in the earlier 
 chapters of the book. Later his very face altered and, 
 when the temptation of power assailed his ignorance, he 
 degenerated beyond recognition. His mother's death 
 put the seal to his undoing, until her son, who started as 
 the saviour of his house, ended as what I frankly own 
 might be called the enemy of his country. There came 
 a stage when he was irresponsible, an instrument in the 
 hands of evil, though he had begun by earnest prayer 
 that he might bring a blessing. As for his judgment, I 
 leave it to your Lordship, being unable even to guess at 
 its direction. I plead for the real man beneath its dis- 
 figurement, thankful that at the last each has to do with 
 a mercy which is not only sound, but which has for its 
 aim the re-instatement of every human being." 
 
 The Judge's attention had not wavered during the 
 advocate's speech, and, if it were possible to charge him 
 with variation of interest in the cases, that of the 
 Agitator would not have ranked lowest in the scale. 
 You felt instinctively that he was on the side of the ma- 
 jority, nor could you help calling to mind the story of 
 One Who was born in a stable, of a mother who could 
 afford no proofs of her marriage. He regarded the pris- 
 oner with great sorrow, but with deep respect, for there 
 was an absence of trifling or indecision about him that
 
 ioo THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 made the case worth while. His preliminary questions 
 were marked by extreme delicacy and forbearance with 
 one who, try as he might, could only see men as trees 
 walking, and even they were limited to a single kind. 
 
 "Tell me," he began, "about your father. Did he 
 suffer much after the accident, or did he pass without 
 any great pain?" 
 
 The Agitator was taken aback, and suddenly seemed to 
 be once more in the miner's cottage. "Yes, he lingered 
 a bit," he answered, in a choked voice, "long enough, 
 thank God, to return to the kind of man he was before he 
 took to the drink, and to trust in the Old Story, but how 
 could you think of such a question?" 
 
 "What was the Old Story your father reverted to?" 
 
 "The kindness of the Saviour who died for all and was 
 Himself a Socialist." 
 
 "I think we will stop at the first part of the sentence, 
 which is more than enough and makes all equally pre- 
 cious." 
 
 (Reluctantly) "I suppose it does." 
 
 "Where did you pick up your education? on which I 
 congratulate you, since knowledge is always valuable and 
 it is fine to accomplish good work with poor tools." 
 
 "First in the Night School, then at the Public Li- 
 braries, where I could select the books I wanted, as there 
 was no great run on them." 
 
 "Would you say that these libraries were entirely 
 to the good?" 
 
 "Not as you put it, with that tone in your voice, but 
 at the time I thought so."
 
 THE AGITATOR 101 
 
 "It seems a pity that you did not read some of the 
 other books, of which there were plenty." 
 
 "You don't mean novels, do you?" 
 
 "No, I don't mean only novels, though many of 
 them would have done you good. Were most of your 
 fellow workmen happy?" 
 
 "Quite a number, but then they were not ambitious 
 chaps and they seemed content with the village." 
 
 "Should you say they were wrong?" 
 
 "Not so wrong from my present standpoint as I 
 should have said then." 
 
 "Were they a religious type?" 
 
 "Nearly all without exception, which made them too 
 soft for my thinking and too prone to accept things as 
 they were." 
 
 "I can more than understand your feelings in this 
 respect. Were you a happier man when working or 
 when speaking? " 
 
 "I should say infinitely more when at my job, and I 
 wish to God I could go back to it." 
 
 "Had you any personal animus against the classes 
 which helped to make you the firebrand you became?" 
 
 "I cannot say that I had, but I had read about their 
 victimising the people, ruining their daughters, and liv- 
 ing on sweated labour, out of which they got carriages, 
 motor cars, yachts, and every other abomination." 
 
 "Why abomination, and why abuse the results of hu- 
 man invention?" 
 
 "Well, it was the use they put them to, which was 
 for themselves and for no one else on God's earth."
 
 102 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "That is better, and therein you appear to have reason 
 for complaint. Were none of them ever kind to you? " 
 
 "Yes, several, and more would have been if I had 
 allowed it; but when you came to know them as in- 
 dividuals you changed your opinions, so I kept apart 
 and persuaded myself that they were only buying me 
 for their own purposes." 
 
 "Did you never think that they also might suffer?" 
 
 "I cannot say I thought of them at all." 
 
 "That is just where you were wrong. How would 
 you have liked to have nothing to do, to wonder how 
 you could put in the time, to be dragged about at the 
 whim of some selfish, over-dressed, lazy woman, to spoil 
 your digestion by over-eating and over-drinking, to be 
 eternally employed in the labour of pleasure till you 
 were nauseated, and would have given your whole soul 
 for a pick and shovel?" 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 "How would you like to have been so immersed in 
 stocks and shares that a garden became meaningless and 
 the grandest view a boredom compared to a scrip or the 
 jingle of a coin?" 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 "How would you like to have had so many diseases 
 that all the faculty were called in when there was noth- 
 ing the matter with you, and when you died, how would 
 you like your relations to swoop down like birds of prey 
 for what you might leave behind? " 
 
 "God forbid!" 
 
 The only remark the Judge made was, "Just so."
 
 THE AGITATOR 103 
 
 "Did you happen," he continued, "to study the laws 
 of capital and labour, or to realise how mutually inter- 
 dependent they were?" 
 
 "I knew the Socialist side well, but cannot say I was 
 well up in the other." 
 
 "Did you not think it hideously wicked to pour oil 
 on the flames of human anger, to increase covetousness, 
 and to breed dissension between those who were meant 
 to be brethren?" 
 
 "The fault lay with the rich and with the capital- 
 ists." 
 
 "I was not talking of the rich or of the capitalists. 
 Rest assured that they will have to settle their own 
 bill, but you forget my question." 
 
 "I'll own I knew it was wicked, but after sufficient 
 repetition it became a habit, until I forgot the blue of 
 the sky and saw only red." 
 
 "I think I can understand, but I am deeply grieved." 
 
 "Why should you be grieved for a man like me?" 
 
 "Because I love you, that's all." 
 
 "Good God!" 
 
 "Excellent words which I advise you to cherish, but 
 the full meaning of which it will take you some tune 
 to learn. One other question. How far did love of 
 country come in, or how far did you become willing to 
 sell it to the foreigner, provided you could lower your 
 special enemies in the dust, who, by the by, spoke your 
 own language and were part and parcel of the same 
 nation?" 
 
 "Yes, I got as low as that, but I daresay if there
 
 104 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 had been trouble, blood would have proved thicker than 
 water." 
 
 "What would you do now if you had the same 
 chances?" 
 
 "I don't want them, and if they came to me I know 
 that I should queer the pitch again, for the good reason 
 that in no other way could I come to the top." 
 
 The lines on the Judge's face were more deeply marked 
 at the end of his words than at the beginning, and he 
 quickly pronounced his sentence, with a seriousness be- 
 fitting the struggle through which the Agitator had evi- 
 dently passed. 
 
 "I wish to thank you for the courtesy with which 
 you have replied to my questions, nor do I disguise from 
 myself that we have much in common. On the other 
 hand, I would make it clear to you, though it may now 
 be hardly necessary, that often enough the man who 
 sets out with the intention of doing most good ends 
 by doing most harm. The memory of the martyrdom 
 which you have imposed on others, without bearing 
 it yourself, will prove to you a worse hell than that which 
 was so fluidly preached in your local Bethels. You will 
 have to carry with you for years the thought of children 
 done to death that you might taste the zest of living. 
 So intense was your egoism that you thought to effect in 
 your own person work belonging to a higher power, and 
 even then dependent on the acceptance of its influence. 
 You forgot that there is a larger proportion of happiness 
 among the masses than among the classes, and that the 
 kingdom of heaven is to be found in simplicity. Little
 
 THE AGITATOR 105 
 
 did you seem to grasp the fact that under silks and satins 
 there is often an aching heart. Such a slave had you 
 become to your own gospel that you overlooked the chief 
 good, namely, work honestly done, accompanied by per- 
 sonal diffidence and universal sympathy. 
 
 "Ambition in itself is laudable, but in yours I discover 
 neither religion nor patriotism, save in the beginning. If 
 your mother had lived, she would hardly have known 
 her boy and, had you been able to provide her with a 
 carriage, you would have ruined that patient soul. What 
 you did for your family is praiseworthy and your virtue 
 has had its due reward. It is not for me to enter into 
 economics, with which I have little to do, but it is for me, 
 though it may wound you to the quick, to repeat that 
 men like yourself are bound to arrive at the time when 
 they recognise their folly. Perhaps the hardest thing 
 I can say is that your country needs precisely such men 
 as you if it is to be saved. Had you only remained gen- 
 tle, loving, and, above all, large-hearted, instead of being 
 obsessed by your own point of view, to the exclusion of 
 every other interest, you might have left behind you an 
 undying name as liberator, peace-maker, and, possibly, 
 martyr. 
 
 "Your punishment, as you can imagine, is merely to 
 take up your tools, to do your duty, to go back to those 
 libraries and read those other books, and to undo by 
 your example the effects of that hell-fire and political 
 religion which obtained in your locality. When you 
 have mastered your lesson, you shall be enabled to ad- 
 vocate the cause of justice without sinning against com-
 
 io6 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 mon sense and without losing one atom of your native 
 fire. The day shall come when it is by no means un- 
 likely that you will see red, but it will be the colour of 
 your own blood. Your world will be a wider one, and 
 it shall consist of rich and poor, one with another."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ACTOR 
 
 THE prisoner, for whom the word was of course 
 only a courtesy title, glanced about him with a 
 vague expression of surprise and disappointment, 
 as though there had been a mistake in the seats allotted 
 to him and to the Judge. He missed his audience badly, 
 nor was he consoled by the prospect of being analysed. 
 For a considerable time he was so dazed that he could 
 not take in the absence of the theatrical, and his aloneness 
 amounted to a tragedy. His artistic sense, however, 
 came to the rescue. In spite of himself he looked for- 
 ward to a drama without scenery. After the glare of the 
 footlights the whiteness of his face, without his make-up, 
 was ghastly. To appear without his company was dis- 
 concerting, and he shrank, as few, from this final judg- 
 ment which was opposed to the histrionic. Yet, with 
 courage bordering on effrontery, the Actor rose to the 
 occasion and with feigned, if not natural humility, took 
 his place to play the most earnest part for which he had 
 been cast. 
 
 It was impossible to criticise him as other men, seeing 
 that his whole career had been dramatic, and it would 
 have been asking too much that he should altogether 
 
 107
 
 io8 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 divest himself of the spurious. The absorbing question 
 was how far the man had become merged in the profes- 
 sion, though it is the fashion to assert that the two may 
 exist entirely apart. No one would deny that such a 
 crisis must have been far harder for him than for the 
 ordinary prisoner. Such confusion may possibly be ex- 
 aggerated by the onlooker who has not been admitted 
 to private intimacy with the great, but the Actor bore 
 traces of a long connection with the stage, which had 
 gradually encroached on his day and entered into his 
 being. It was this which called for special considera- 
 tion, the more so since the almost inevitable loss of gen- 
 uineness had been the gain of others. Once more the 
 cosmic law became apparent, that no man lives to him- 
 self, or even affords amusement save at the risk of his 
 own undoing. So swift was the accused to harmonise 
 with the mise-en-scene, that he adopted the quick change 
 to a private individual with hardly an effort. As the 
 case proceeded and he found that it was confined mainly 
 to his public attitude, he felt more at home, and reverted 
 to the language of the theatre rather than to his mother 
 tongue, which he had almost forgotten. 
 
 "I rise," he said, "with all diffidence, to accuse myself 
 of many things, perceiving that I am in the presence of 
 my master, a sensation to which for some years I have 
 been a stranger. Were I asked whether I am genuinely 
 sorry, I should answer that part of me is, recognising 
 as I do that this is the moment to shed a tear. But, be- 
 ing forced to honesty in spite of myself, I desire to ex- 
 press my inmost feelings so far as any remain. I wish
 
 THE ACTOR 109 
 
 to acknowledge a self-satisfaction which, under present 
 circumstances, ranks with insanity, and, what is still 
 more fatal, is not in the picture. Indeed I realise that 
 not only did I overrate myself but was seldom off the 
 boards except in my sleep, when, by the bye, my dreams 
 were naturally about my Mistress, to whom I am ever 
 faithful. Here I might possibly recite one of my odes 
 to art, a mere trifle, but on second thoughts I will cut 
 it out. To be serious, I became a poseur of the worst 
 description and, though I was too busy to detect its ap- 
 proach, there crept over me a blindness to facts and a 
 lack of proportion for which I should have given it as 
 my opinion that any one else ought to be 'certified.' 
 
 "I would further confess that this same clouding of 
 my sense rendered it difficult to be a true friend, to 
 answer letters, to keep engagements, or to hold by hon- 
 our in my private relationships, unless they suited my 
 whims or served the purpose of a poster. By nature I 
 was not devoid of affection, being abnormally developed 
 in that direction, which increases my offence, seeing 
 that by a turn of the finger I could make any one my 
 slave without giving them aught in return. It is sur- 
 prising how I survived what to most men would have 
 been tragedies, and would turn up for rehearsal without 
 a cloud on my horizon. At this point I would like to 
 remark that mesmerism as a science is much neglected, 
 and no good work can be done without it. But where are 
 we? Thus I became the willing victim of praise, and un- 
 less I received it, whether deserved or not, I grew tired and 
 found myself bored even by my oldest acquaintances.
 
 no THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "My solace was the looking-glass, and to it I constantly 
 resorted, till a moment came when it could no longer 
 satisfy me and I was plunged into corresponding despair. 
 Then I sent for my friends, whom I found as attached 
 as ever, but the sense of my fascination for them (a 
 talent which in some instances may amount to a mis- 
 fortune), though it acted as a cocktail, failed to do me 
 any lasting good. On the contrary, it intensified my 
 conceit to think that there were quite a good many who 
 would have been only too pleased to lay down their 
 lives for me if I waved my wand, without any effort on 
 my part to retain their devotion. What it was that 
 attracted them I cannot say, but even now, in this un- 
 comfortably solemn place, I am chuckling inside over 
 a problem of which I was the centre. 
 
 "As for the Art to which my life was dedicated, I here 
 admit, and with less confusion, since in the main I was 
 true to it, that the temptations of my surroundings 
 proved at times too strong for me. I have no desire 
 to excuse myself at the expense of others, but having 
 ever been careful to avoid scandal, I realise that I have 
 not been severely tested. I prefer to own that the 
 strain of remaining at my best and the price of preserv- 
 ing my early ideals became too expensive, particularly 
 if it meant the loss of popularity and conflicted with 
 the love of money, or rather spending power, which 
 had grown upon me. With those about me, who possi- 
 bly helped towards this end, it may not have been a 
 sin, but for myself who had had the vision, these be- 
 trayals filled me with infinite sorrow. I knew full well
 
 THE ACTOR in 
 
 that I was born with a mission to inspire my fellows, 
 and to turn this beastly wilderness of a world into some 
 sort of garden. From the fulfilment of that high call- 
 ing I frequently fell and, having fallen, would now ask 
 a sentence which, however hard, shall help me to re- 
 cover loyalty to the voices which I heard more clearly 
 when I was a boy. 
 
 "I confess, above all, that I deliberately refused to 
 teach the lessons laid upon me because, in my heart of 
 hearts, I privately hated, while as an artist I adored, 
 the principle of sacrifice. I had no intention of losing 
 my life, though I often found it convenient to play the 
 part in order to appeal to the emotions of the pit and 
 to soothe the conscience of the stalls. I stand here 
 to-day abashed, but happier than I can recall; and if I 
 might beg one favour, it would be that the mischief I 
 did may not be perpetuated, and that the Art which 
 has been for me, and still is to multitudes their chief 
 inspiration, may not have suffered irretrievably at my 
 hands." 
 
 The advocate rose with sternness but with confidence, 
 conscious that he had to defend an exceptional character, 
 but one who was more fool than knave, and without 
 vice though he hugged his vices. He felt that he was 
 engaged in a case of the first importance, more on ac- 
 count of the prevailing infatuation for the sham than 
 on that of the accused. He had so often tried to get 
 an interview with him, but had been put off to a more 
 convenient season, or they had been interrupted, or else 
 after two minutes the Actor had got back to himself,
 
 ii2 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 that his counsel had nearly lost interest in his charge. 
 The presence of the Judge not only revived it, but ren- 
 dered the occasion far more suggestive. 
 
 He could not disguise from himself that what was 
 taboo to hundreds of the most pious was to thousands 
 not only one of their chief pleasures, but a strong factor 
 in their mental development. It was not for him to 
 weigh the pros and cons, but he was distressed at the 
 chasm which divided the disputants, and was at pains to 
 discover a media via by which they might at any rate 
 become less opposed. It was apparent that without 
 some dramatic talent the pulpit would be powerless, 
 and that, if the actor should be a preacher, the preacher 
 must also be an actor. What he longed to witness was 
 not so much the abolition of the theatrical instinct as 
 its purging from the flagrant abuses and hateful bias 
 towards fantasy by which it was threatened. On the 
 other hand, seeing that the difference between plays 
 might be as great as between light and darkness, he 
 feared a too hasty and sweeping condemnation. As the 
 advocate, discarding personalities, surveyed this debat- 
 able ground of right and wrong, typified by the de- 
 bonair figure leaning over the dock, he spoke with a 
 pathos proportionate to its absence in the Actor. 
 
 "I rise, my Lord," he said, "to put before you the 
 intimate side of the accused, which it has become such 
 a habit with him to deny that I was myself tempted to 
 forget its existence. I am aware that at times his want 
 of depth and his sense of humour did not allow him to 
 take in the gravity of the proceedings. At others, such
 
 THE ACTOR 113 
 
 was the obsession of the scenic that he even failed to 
 recognise your Lordship without the trappings inciden- 
 tal to your office. Having known him from his earliest 
 days, I would inform you that his was one of the kindest 
 natures conceivable. On occasions, in private life, he 
 often proved himself to be as gentle as a woman, it 
 hardly being so much his fault as that of the atmosphere 
 of his calling that publicity showed him at his worst. 
 He could never have harmed a human being, but rather 
 was lavish in his pity when brought into contact with 
 suffering, which I have to own he did his best to avoid. 
 If the affair was sufficiently striking, it was, next to 
 appearing on the boards, his greatest luxury; and, if he 
 happened to decide on the moment, I have seldom known 
 his equal in graceful charity. He was intensely catholic, 
 though credited with being exclusive, but so practised 
 was he in fancying himself others that he was at home 
 with the common heart. I doubt whether the normal 
 man could have done an unkind thing and, when he was 
 cruel, he was unconscious of it, nearly all his mistakes 
 arising from the egoism to which he has alluded, and 
 which was more grotesque than criminal. 
 
 "He held a high place among those who spared no 
 pains in the service of the Art to which they were de- 
 voted, his self-accusing on that score being as exag- 
 gerated as all else about him. None but myself knew 
 how he worked and strove and suffered for this ideal, 
 as I can testify when he was alone after the play was 
 done. His world, which was a comprehensive one, owed 
 him no small debt, nor would he have acquired the
 
 n 4 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 worship of his entourage unless he had proved himself 
 the best of masters to all, from the leading lady to the 
 call boy. Many are the ways which point upwards, and 
 mankind is moved by countless forces towards its better- 
 ment. Such a spur the prisoner undoubtedly was, and 
 in the public esteem, which is seldom wrong, he stood 
 for a gay courage and for work excellently done, amount- 
 ing, sometimes, to a passionate inspiration. He went 
 far to save the city from gloom, but the price he paid 
 was more than once a darkness which tempted him to 
 toy with a pistol. 
 
 "He translated many of the best thoughts given to 
 the world, and thus, though piety was not his object, 
 was on the side of the angels. You will, I am sure, be 
 lenient towards the vanity which was as much a part 
 of the man as his fun, and will divide the responsibility 
 between him and an ignorant society which treated him 
 with a flunkeyism and curiosity on a par with that paid 
 to exalted personages. His lapses through the temp- 
 tation of the Box Office were intelligible, his profession 
 tending to extravagance, as also to a crowd of flatterers, 
 which made it difficult for him to confine himself to the 
 best work, or to sustain ideals conducing to comparative 
 poverty. 
 
 "I would ask your Lordship, then, to deal with him 
 largely, as befits the size of his attainments and the 
 breadth of his treatment, both of which, though gifts, 
 were also dangers. My contention is that his popularity 
 was immensely due to painstaking, that he never quailed 
 where the majority would have given in, and that, in
 
 THE ACTOR 115 
 
 spite of his shortcomings, he left the world brighter than 
 he found it. In conclusion, I would plead that he nobly 
 played his part in helping men and women over many a 
 dark and tedious moment, causing them to laugh through 
 their grief , enlarging their horizon, and often helping them 
 towards heroism." 
 
 A smile played over the features of the Judge, as though 
 even he found it difficult to treat the prisoner severely. 
 Yet this was only for a moment, and his questions were 
 full of an earnestness to which the Actor immediately 
 responded. When the Judge asked him of his home life 
 and early intuitions, his eyes moistened and, with the 
 frankness of a child, he confessed to having been so 
 touched in his imagination by the story of the Gospels 
 that he had nearly determined to be a priest, but the 
 following day had forgotten all about it. 
 
 As to his vanity, he entirely agreed, but was mainly 
 amused. He stated that he had never felt its heinous- 
 ness, having so long considered himself unique that even 
 now he justified it, and was inclined to argue the point. 
 The meekness of the Judge began at last to disabuse bis 
 mind, and he ended by owning himself to be on this count 
 a fool. 
 
 When the Judge questioned him as to morality, the 
 Actor displayed a blend of idealism and inconsistency, 
 as if his sentiments of right and wrong were altogether 
 blurred. He showed little sensitiveness as to the effect 
 of his personal example, which he persisted had nothing 
 to do with such abstract terms as purity, chivalry, or 
 saintliness, by which he had never ceased to be moved.
 
 n6 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 Any type more receptive of what had reference to beauty, 
 or even to the Deity Himself, than the accused, it would 
 be difficult to conceive, but this tender counsellor dis- 
 covered him to be singularly dense when it came to what 
 annoyed him in any particular. He was not, however, 
 nearly such a dullard as he seemed, but as it was an 
 invariable rule with him to gratify his inclinations, he 
 found it convenient to ignore all relations between theory 
 and practice. 
 
 When the Judge spoke of the matter of money, he 
 treated it as not over-important, nor did he screen him- 
 self on the ground of necessary luxuries, which he took 
 for granted. He frankly admitted that the Box Office 
 was a means to an end, that he did not care for gold, 
 being a Bohemian at heart, but that he hated incon- 
 venience, loved display, and desired to do things royally 
 on his own plane. He could not resist adding that his 
 extravagance was also in the nature of an advertisement. 
 
 As the Judge touched on the more public aspect of his 
 career, the Actor became more intent, having till then 
 with difficulty sustained his attention, and a look of sad- 
 ness came over him when he realised how much of his 
 best work had failed. It was evident that here he was 
 hit the hardest, and that he was regretting a personality 
 which had spoilt some of his best productions. Doubt- 
 less he recalled how his keenest pleasure had been found 
 in his noblest characters, contrasting with them a life 
 which, in others, would have earned his strongest con- 
 demnation. He was stung by the paradox of having 
 said beautiful things, followed by ugly deeds, and in the
 
 THE ACTOR 117 
 
 twitchi'ig of his face you could see the gradual resto- 
 ration of the child. This was achieved with consummate 
 skill and patience by the Judge, who, passing by what it 
 was useless to refer to, gently brought the Actor back to 
 the man, and proved himself in so doing to be the truest 
 artist of all. 
 
 When, in conclusion, the Judge, with pitiless insistence, 
 touched on the point of the influence he had exercised 
 on the drama as a whole, the prisoner winced and, with 
 a new-born agony at the thought of any whom he had 
 misled, burst into tears and begged him to say no more, 
 because this at least he could not bear, and this at least 
 he would give his soul to undo. 
 
 In his summing up the Judge remarked, "Yours is a 
 case which has interested me profoundly, and during the 
 recital of which I have been moved by varied feelings. 
 As to your egoism, you were a monomaniac, which for- 
 tunately closes that subject. I recognise the largeness 
 of your heart, the charm of your disposition, and the 
 brilliancy of your gifts, but all these things, being totally 
 unmerited, have only laid you under a heavier obligation. 
 You require no words of mine to remind you that, to a 
 great extent, they proved your bane and tended towards 
 your demoralisation, but to a temperament like yours, 
 your own disappointment on this score is no light pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 "Wherein you have failed most and wherein you are 
 bound to suffer most is that you have trifled with and 
 even degraded opportunities vouchsafed to few. Called 
 to occupy a position you might have still more adorned,
 
 n8 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 and endowed with versatility and mirth for the benefit 
 of your fellows, you often fell short of your highest and 
 did incalculable damage. I need not tell you how many 
 have been led astray in following your footsteps; you 
 are already so haunted by the thought that I will not 
 add to your pain. Yet, believe me, though I more than 
 make allowance in my decision, I shall best prove my love 
 by laying on you such a task as shall help you to realise 
 the ideals which you have missed, and to attain those 
 peaks with which alone your aspirations can be satisfied. 
 
 "When you leave this Court you shall employ your 
 talents on the same stage as heretofore, but with a dif- 
 ferent setting. For years you shall occupy a lower place 
 and be entirely unknown. You shall undergo the dis- 
 cipline of being despised and, though strong, you shaU 
 become far stronger through suffering. Gradually, and 
 by painful steps, you shall approach the distinction of 
 former days, but even then you shall be baffled and 
 eclipsed by the meanness of others, until you learn to 
 loathe the vanity which vitiated your genius. 
 
 " Then, when your soul is born, your imagination will 
 gain a force it never knew and, when your heart is 
 broken, the pathos of your utterance shall melt all who 
 hear it. When you have become nothing in your own 
 esteem, you shall be re-entrusted with the mission for 
 which you secretly long, and you shall present only what 
 your awakened conscience approves. It shall be your 
 care that none about you shall be injured. Having 
 taken your own measurement, you shall wax deadly 
 earnest and accomplish that for which you were des-
 
 THE ACTOR 119 
 
 tined. You will avoid, instead of courting the mock halo 
 still needed by your colleagues, and you will dare to be 
 real because you have no further use for unearned 
 laurels. You will give to your calling a higher and 
 healthier tone, without denying its legitimate outlet 
 both to laughter and to the heart. All this will cost you 
 much, but the result will be more than worth the price, 
 and you will be able to look into that same glass for 
 professional purposes without self-contempt or hypoc- 
 risy. Then, and not till then, when you shall have 
 learned the secret of gaining the heart of the people by 
 the lavish giving of your own, will you be a great actor."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 CIRCE 
 
 SHE belonged very much to society. It would 
 have been difficult to discover the smallest defect 
 in her bearing. The most prominent feature was 
 the feeling of comfort she brought with her, and she 
 might have been described as just a womanly woman. 
 Everything about her breathed kindness. Whatever her 
 faults, it was impossible not to call to mind one who was 
 much forgiven because she loved much. Not for a 
 moment did Circe suggest carnality pure and simple, but 
 rather an intense craving to bestow affection where it 
 might be needed. She happened to have been well 
 placed in the world, but, good manners being her forte, 
 she would have been at home anywhere and have given 
 the sense of it to all her surroundings. Her dualism was 
 apparent and, though she was undoubtedly voluptuous, 
 there was an unmistakable hint of the angel. 
 
 She was full of brain, had plainly thought out problems, 
 and had made her plans without being influenced by 
 public opinion or accepted standards. Her attitude at 
 the moment was in exact keeping with the position in 
 which she found herself, as she possessed that delightful 
 quality of becoming part of the picture without the least
 
 CIRCE 121 
 
 effort. Being well bred, she was hardly affected by in- 
 convenience, and behaved as if it was perfectly natural 
 that she should be brought up for judgment. Her pres- 
 ence set the onlooker thinking how many must be occu- 
 pied with the thought of her, and it was hard not to 
 arrive at the wrong conclusion that the fates had been kind 
 to a woman endowed with such power of pleasing. The 
 anomaly about this most selfish being was that she was 
 more concerned with the affairs of others than with her 
 own, though how to explain such a paradox passes compre- 
 hension. Her first thought was for the Judge who was 
 being detained on her account, nor was this fanciful, for 
 she was so peculiarly sympathetic that the other person's 
 standpoint immediately struck her and she found herself 
 intent on being what she would have called "extra nice." 
 "I should like," she said, "to thank you sincerely for 
 having brought me here, by no means against my will, 
 as for years I have longed to arrive at a solution of the 
 riddle how to be good without ceasing to be gay. I fear 
 that what I have to say is very commonplace and cannot 
 appeal to one so far removed from my own level, but at 
 any rate I never deceived myself in what I did, nor ever 
 pretended that it had my entire approval. I was mar- 
 ried under the best possible conditions and, when the 
 wedding bells rang, no girl drank more deeply of joy. 
 My husband was for me a demi-god for quite a little 
 time; but, without any fault on his part, save that he was 
 not brilliant, there came over me a lifelessness and a 
 craving for something vivid, coloured, and dangerous, 
 though I had everything mortal could desire.
 
 122 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Yet there it was, and I was attracted to the illicit for 
 no definite reason, but because the licit was too con- 
 tracted and too tame. I cannot accuse myself of being 
 carnally inclined beyond the rest, but I felt an over- 
 whelming thirst for new experiences and, in the process, 
 to give myself away. My husband, who was 'awfully 
 fond of me,' could not imagine why I could be aught but 
 content, nor, had he asked me directly, could I myself 
 have explained it. Yet my brain went on working and 
 working, and my life seemed to be stopping and stopping, 
 until I came across what promised to fulfil my desire 
 and brought me a sensation which I euphemised by the 
 name of harmony. We arranged matters without any 
 disturbance to my home. The man whose name I bore 
 was busied with his own concerns, and I doubt if he 
 bothered much about anything so long as I came down 
 in the morning looking fresh, and during the day per- 
 formed my duties of chatelaine. 
 
 "I am conscious that I was the reverse of true, but 
 the pity is that I cannot say it caused me the smallest 
 regret. Wrong came to be right after I had taken the 
 first step, and one side of my character was unquestion- 
 ably improved through an action for which I neither could 
 nor wished to find an excuse. I was sweeter, kinder, 
 and more charitable than I had been before, and though 
 I had to give up praying I deceived myself into thinking 
 the angels nearer, and that existence had taken on a new 
 glory. I no longer despised the courtesan, though I did 
 not stop to wonder why, and the peasant woman became 
 my sister, but society began to lose its charm, while I
 
 CIRCE 123 
 
 developed into a rebel against convention. If I were 
 asked to compare my lover with my husband, the odd 
 thing is that I would never have married the former. 
 Yet, when I think over the wildness of it all, the stolen 
 interviews, the living on the edge, the mysterious blend- 
 ing of my worst with my best, I still cannot pretend to 
 remorse, and believe I should do the same over again." 
 
 (Here the Judge gently remarked that the last senti- 
 ment was probably premature.) 
 
 "Then my friend died and life became shrouded in 
 gloom. I invested him with a halo and kept the romance 
 locked away in a secret drawer, with my most sacred 
 treasures. The mother in me was troubled, I must 
 admit, and I caught myself envying the ' one-man' type 
 of woman whose single love had ever been for her as her 
 religion. Time brought its own cure, or rather a return 
 of the same disease. The old yearning had again and 
 yet again to be satisfied, till I came to the point when, 
 without a 'friend,' the days would have been insupport- 
 able. I grew less and less difficult to please, though, for 
 my husband's sake, I never neglected appearances, nor 
 gave him cause to imagine that anything was wrong. 
 The ghastly part of it was that I cared for them all in 
 varying degrees; but I suppose I must have been like 
 an eastern book in a western cover, and even now I can- 
 not in the least understand. 
 
 "This it was which kept me tender and soft, while 
 it vivified my brain and, loving knowledge almost as 
 keenly as I did touch, I was for ever striving to learn and 
 to forward my evolution. I wrote, too, and they tell
 
 124 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 me that I helped thousands, but here I was a puzzle to 
 myself, for I contradicted my own conduct and pleaded 
 for purity as though I had been a nun. That is my story ; 
 and, when my call came to leave, never was there a more 
 tender farewell than my husband gave me, which I knew 
 was undeserved, but I kept my secret even then. Now 
 I am glad to have arrived where, for the first time, I can 
 tell it all and, without one atom of reserve, reveal this 
 melange, which was unspeakably despicable, but the mem- 
 ory of which is inexplicably sweet." 
 
 The advocate addressed himself to his task with no 
 hesitation, appearing to know his client intimately, and 
 to be confident of her eventual ascent, though he had 
 often marked with sorrow the downward grade on 
 which she had been travelling. As a rule the advocate 
 manifested feelings either of attraction or repulsion, but 
 in this case, when her counsel interceded for Circe, it was 
 clear that he both sympathised with and hated her 
 character. 
 
 "I rise, my Lord," he began, "not only to ask for 
 leniency, but to appeal to the love which is your speciality 
 and of which the accused is by no means ignorant. In- 
 credible as it may appear, she always welcomed our 
 private interviews, regarding me as her dear friend. 
 She had a leaning towards holy things, and the singularity 
 of her make-up is shown by her delight in worship. It 
 is difficult to speak with certainty of what the result 
 might have been if, at her marriage, her soul had met 
 its mental mate, there being that in her blood which 
 is abnormal to her sex, else the world would stand a poor
 
 CIRCE 125 
 
 chance of being saved. Your Lordship alone can decide 
 whether, if she had been gifted with a companion on 
 the intellectual side, the subsequent disaster would have 
 taken place. This woman was instinct with generosity, 
 nor was she happy except in the expression of it. For 
 some psychological reason her emotions refused to be 
 limited to a single safety valve; and I contend that, 
 when this obtains, the patient (which I believe is a fit- 
 ting term) verges on the incurable, calling not only for 
 medical skill but for ample allowance. 
 
 "She refused the former, not desiring freedom, and 
 it was not her good fortune to meet with the latter. 
 Her looseness of conduct, betraying itself more than 
 she was aware in her face and general appearance, pre- 
 vented the approach of the pious, whom at that time 
 she would have repelled, so that she was left much alone. 
 Not alone, indeed, on the part of those who helped her 
 undoing, though she found herself, when in their com- 
 pany, craving for a holiness which attracted her and, 
 for lack of which, none of her friends could hold her for 
 long. It is beyond my power to describe her agonised 
 attempts to break away from her lower self. Had 
 she been asked, at such moments, what she wished for 
 more than all else, her reply would have been hatred of 
 sin. I doubt if she ever came near it because, though 
 one side of her loathed itself in dust and ashes, so strong 
 was her innate animalism that, as she declared in her 
 statement, wantonness never became for her quite 
 wrong. Her piety was epileptic, and she had fits of it; 
 but she rapidly recovered and, throwing up her hands,
 
 126 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 after a while let herself float down the stream. The 
 complaisance of her husband, who possibly guessed more 
 than he knew, but whose hatred of the disagreeable was 
 proverbial, was not in her favour. Could she have 
 gone into a convent at the magical moment, she would 
 have lost her restlessness and become an excellent abbess. 
 
 "I regret that I cannot be more lucid in presenting 
 to you this bundle of contradictions, but there is the 
 truth, and its seriousness is the greater since it shows 
 the non-moral standpoint of a vaster number of women 
 in civilised countries than I dare to contemplate. I 
 pray you not to forget that, in her own way, she loved 
 her husband and her children, but that the flood of feel- 
 ing was too strong for her, swamping her good resolves, 
 and landing her in a morass too pitiable for words. 
 From that quagmire she pleads to you, being too chival- 
 rous to complain lest she should bring one atom of 
 blame on others, but lilies may be even whiter and more 
 luxuriant for the blackness of the soil in which they 
 were nurtured." 
 
 The effect on the Judge was to render him speechless. 
 The movement of his lips showed that he was praying 
 for power to deal wisely with a dilemma appalling both 
 in its frequency and its faithlessness. Calm returned 
 to him without overmuch delay, but it was long enough 
 to portray the penalty of a priesthood that descends 
 into the abyss from which it strives to rescue the perish- 
 ing. He then spoke gently with the accused: 
 
 "Tell me of your childhood and how it was passed." 
 
 "I call to mind the loveliest home, where everything
 
 CIRCE 127 
 
 conduced to make for good. There was an old chapel 
 close to the Hall which was my favourite haunt, and I 
 loved the hills, the country, the lake in the park, the 
 running water, and the animals, especially my pets. I 
 used to wander for hours telling stories to myself about 
 the saints, and there was always a knight or two thrown 
 in." 
 
 "Did any one help or advise you when you were 
 young?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and though I forgot his teaching, he 
 remained my best friend, whatever happened, crediting 
 me with the highest aims." 
 
 "To what do you attribute your disloyalty to the 
 teaching of your early guide?" 
 
 "I cannot say; it just came. I was for ever and for 
 ever wanting something, though I could not have told 
 what, but I gave no thought to the unhappy who were 
 calling out for my service." 
 
 "How was it that you did not hear their sighing and 
 their groaning as you knelt by the Altar?" 
 
 "I wish I knew, but the religion of my childhood was 
 hardly more than a day-dream of which I was the cen- 
 tral figure. The Gospel was all too wonderful and too 
 beautifully old. I had the dearest little books at my 
 bed-head, but the language in which they spoke was of 
 so long ago that they had no bearing on my days. I 
 could not imagine that the thorns were meant for me 
 who loved the flowers." 
 
 "Would you say that your upbringing was responsible 
 for your later declension?"
 
 128 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "It seems like one book, and the early chapters 
 breathed the same fantasy which ran throughout the 
 volume." 
 
 "Were you prone to melancholy during your girl- 
 hood?" 
 
 "I had fits of sadness after any great elation or after 
 reading the mediaeval love stories which I found in the 
 library." 
 
 "When you were a woman, did you suffer from no 
 satiety after your indulgence?" 
 
 "I hardly think I did, for then it was tangible and 
 terribly real. Sometimes I would weep, but I made up 
 some fairy tale as to how at last I had found the blue 
 rose and things would be better, if not the best, this 
 time." 
 
 "As you grew older, did you feel sick to think how 
 you had spoiled the story and sullied your soul?" 
 
 "No, it would have been cowardly, and we were 
 brought up not to go back, even on the devil, if we had 
 played into his hands. I took it all as it came, though 
 I was conscious of the shreds and patches, but I would not 
 own it, and I did have happy moments which it would 
 be ungrateful to deny." 
 
 "Did you never realise the vileness of your hypocrisy 
 and that you were worse than the courtesan, in that 
 your actions were on a level with hers while you still 
 posed as being a wife and retained your position in the 
 world?" 
 
 "Sometimes it came over me, but I solaced myself 
 by thinking that we were different, and that, at any rate,
 
 CIRCE 129 
 
 no trading came in and my own sinning was veiled in 
 much beauty." 
 
 "Did not the thought of your children come to your 
 aid, and how could you find it possible to look them in 
 the face again?" 
 
 "Why such confusion did not send me mad I cannot 
 say, for I loved them passionately and often prayed that 
 they might not have the same nature as mine." 
 
 "Did it not strike you that a mother's influence lies 
 not so much in what she says or does as in what she 
 is?" 
 
 "I felt that, and knew that I must be a pollution to 
 them, so I handed them over more and more to gover- 
 nesses, in whose selection I was extremely careful, and 
 who could talk to them of things of which I was un- 
 worthy to speak." 
 
 "How was it they did not serve to bring you back? " 
 
 "More than once they almost did, when I kissed them 
 as they slept and vowed with blinding tears that, for 
 their sakes, I would be clean." 
 
 "Did they love you in return?" 
 
 "More than many good women are loved, but it 
 proved a temptation and cheated me into thinking that, 
 after all, my private yielding did them no harm." 
 
 "And their father, whom you profess to have loved 
 throughout? " 
 
 "He remained to me the dearest man in the world, 
 and there was nothing that I would not have done for 
 him, except to give up a sensation which had become 
 for me as my daily food."
 
 i 3 o THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Did you ever think of his honour when you endan- 
 gered your own? " 
 
 "For his own sake I often asked him to take me away 
 where I thought I would be a better wife, and where I 
 resolved to think of nothing but his interests." 
 
 "How could you go on caring for him while you were 
 fouling his nest and doing him the greatest injury that 
 one can do another?" 
 
 "Here I am at a loss for an answer, but I can swear 
 that I cared and that I have never known another man 
 with whom I would have lived." 
 
 "Does the thought of him hurt you now? " 
 
 "More than any other, except a vague one that I have 
 offended hopelessly against God, as I can see by the sor- 
 row on your face." 
 
 ("Not hopelessly," the Judge remarked, and tears fell 
 from his eyes, though they seemed to be more of joy than 
 of pain.) 
 
 "Did you not realise that, in your descent, you were 
 dragging down your friends?" 
 
 "I deluded myself that I would not have hurt a hair 
 of their heads, but so distorted was my view that I did not 
 resent it when they called me the saviour of their lives." 
 
 "Can you recall one who ultimately became bettered 
 by these unhappy ventures?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 "Did you realise that you were undermining the basis 
 of society, or that you had taken a solemn vow to forsake 
 all other?" 
 
 "I see now what I did not see then, but if you put
 
 CIRCE 131 
 
 it to me so bluntly I shall despair and lose sight of the 
 lining which silvered my darkest clouds." 
 
 "If you had the chance, would you give up all that 
 side and become one of the godly matrons to whose ranks 
 you pledged yourself at your marriage?" 
 
 "I am afraid I should not unless I was quite old and, 
 brutal as it may seem, I fear I should still dream of the 
 past and wish it might return." 
 
 The Judge, in finally addressing the prisoner, contin- 
 ued to adopt the tone of his talk, so unwilling did he 
 seem to put her in the pillory, yet from his lips came 
 sterner words than were his wont. 
 
 "I wish to explain to you," he said, "that your life 
 has done graver harm than a more openly wicked one, 
 though, strangely enough, not so much to yourself as 
 to the sisterhood to which you belong. Your own sen- 
 sitiveness in sinning against your ideal has brought with 
 it sufficient punishment. I grant that you were com- 
 plex above the average, to an extent never intended by 
 nature, but it is well to remember the natural law that 
 the indulgence of parents may reappear in the immoral- 
 ity of their offspring. I would warn you not to ex- 
 cuse yourself by that worst of subterfuges, 'non-moral.' 
 You must admit that you sinned against the first prin- 
 ciples of integrity, and dishonoured the names of wife 
 and mother, though no one can accuse you of falling 
 short of the tenderness implied by both. When I think 
 that you publicly denounced divorce to save your own face, 
 I should be tempted to speak with unalloyed disgust, if it 
 were not for the thorn with which you were buffeted.
 
 i 3 2 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "I, too, have heard your prayers, every one of 
 which was genuine when it was uttered, but the springs 
 of self-pleasing must be looked for nearer the source. 
 The foundations of your character were sapped by the 
 charm of your home, and by those long walks when you 
 pictured the nuns and the knights in mystic fellowship. 
 The romance of the chapel and the snare of its dim re- 
 ligious light prepared you for the fallacies which followed. 
 When your teacher, for whom you preserved a laudable 
 reverence, failed to bring you up soberly on the Word, 
 he sowed the seeds of irreparable harm. When he 
 omitted to point out that broken bread and outpoured 
 wine conveyed the prospect of unselfishness and sacrifice, 
 he little knew that he was helping to form habits which 
 resulted in sacrilege. Here it was that the venom began its 
 deadly work, rendering subsequent self-control well-nigh 
 impossible, nor is it surprising that, when you thought you 
 were devout, you often woke to find you were sensual. 
 
 "Your greatest guilt lies in having endangered the 
 virtue of other women, not by your words, of which you 
 were uniformly careful, but by your atmosphere, which 
 suggested a poisonous perfume. You were false to the 
 fundamental truth that woman was made to be a 
 help meet for the difficulties of man, and not a hindrance 
 meet for his emasculation. Unwittingly you retarded 
 the liberation of your sex by your license, and your 
 conduct fostered the delusion that friendship can be 
 blessed without the preservation of holiness. Where 
 the calibre of both calls forth sincere devotion, the emo- 
 tion is too intense to admit of any medium. Herein
 
 CIRCE 133 
 
 your charm added to the curse; but, knowing that you 
 feel this in your heart, I cannot add to your anguish. 
 Anything sadder, anything more contrary to the divine 
 intention it is impossible to imagine, but from the mo- 
 ment its meaning is mastered, no living force becomes 
 half so effective in bringing about the new heaven and 
 the new earth which are destined to arrive. 
 
 "As for your penalty, I have nought to say except to 
 leave you to think it out after you have heard the un- 
 disguised truth. You are too religious in yourself to 
 need indirect guidance, and without a word you know 
 precisely the path you are called upon to tread. Little 
 is required in a character like yours but the foregoing of 
 your own will. As birds fly, your trend will then, but 
 not till then, be upward. To your aid in this emprise 
 will come your almost boundless affection, your entire 
 liberty from prejudice, and your rare freedom from social 
 distinctions. When your perverted passions are once 
 impressed into this new endeavour, you will, ere long, 
 return to the best lessons in the ruined chapel, and to 
 the help which might have come to you from your hills. 
 Though you cannot obviate the injuries of which you 
 have been guilty, you will find yourself asking, if not 
 for their removal, that they may issue in the same re- 
 pentance which has come to yourself. Above all, you 
 shall find that the fairy stories were true, namely, that 
 men and women, dedicated to God, were created for 
 His glory and to love without ceasing to be pure. Your 
 old teacher shall see of the travail of his soul."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 
 
 IT WAS evident that so poor a creature would have 
 a bad time before such a Judge. His manner was 
 annoying and his meaningless expression contrasted 
 unfavourably with the force, however deplorable, to be 
 seen in those more criminally inclined. The difficulty 
 was to put one's ringer on any special flaw in the Senti- 
 mentalist, who was faultlessly attired and had the face 
 of an insipid angel. 'He looked supremely pleased with 
 himself, nor had he any intention of being disturbed. 
 The accused had lost every vestige of the solid in his 
 mawkish and unhealthy mode of existence. Doubtless 
 he had been the subject of unlimited homage, which 
 had tended to prevent self-knowledge, and which had 
 by no means been rebuked as it deserved. His hair was 
 too long, his blue eyes lacked depth, and his profile was, 
 in his peculiar language, that of a Greek god. His name 
 had been in the mouth of thousands who had hung on 
 his words, never dreaming how they had undermined 
 their lives, but quoting them as wonderful, heavenly, 
 intense, suggestive of moonlight, or other epithets which 
 were current coin among his admirers. 
 
 Meanwhile, the recipient of this adulation remained 
 
 134
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 135 
 
 unmoved, and there was no line on his face hinting at 
 pain or any other inconvenience. His smile, which had 
 been styled seraphic, soon palled, and it became apparent 
 that the case had to do with one of the worst enemies 
 of manliness. He was so occupied with his own affairs 
 that for a time he did not notice the Judge, but suddenly 
 glancing up, he was disconcerted by the directness of 
 his gaze and the quiet rebuke conveyed. Though he 
 had touched the high-water mark of conceit, even he 
 felt that play-acting was done with; and, giving way to 
 enforced candour, he rose from his seat with an elaborate 
 bow. 
 
 "I feel that I must ask a thousand pardons for any 
 trouble I may be causing, but I am suffering, for the 
 first time, from an attack of sincerity, for which I would 
 respectfully apologise. Though I cannot grasp how my 
 concerns can interest you, I would inform you that for 
 many years I have led a distinguished career in delud- 
 ing the world, and in stirring up emotions which I have 
 always suppressed in myself lest they should endanger 
 my exceptional beauty. 
 
 "I can hardly recall an element of romance which I 
 have not used for all it was worth. Soon after my ar- 
 rival at puberty (you will find this expression in one of 
 my novels), I was struck by the Bible as full of excellent 
 passages for the poet, and the central Figure of the Gos- 
 pels presented to me a union of pathos and power in 
 which I detected the making of first-class material. Some 
 of the women in the Book, too, took my fancy, and I made 
 a note of them as the groundwork of my future heroines,
 
 136 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 nor did I consider it unbecoming to weave a love story 
 between one of them and the Saviour of mankind. 
 Having thus carefully baited my trap for the suburbs, I 
 rapidly proceeded to warmer fiction. Not that I ever 
 guessed for what triumphs I was destined, but I wrote 
 when the afflatus came over me, though after having 
 accomplished titanic tasks I was not in the least fatigued, 
 but, in the words of my intimates, as fresh as a daisy. 
 
 "My books achieved an unheard-of sale, under a 
 nom de plume which was in itself a caress. Ere long I 
 was idolised both in my own and other countries as a 
 constant delight, and as a magician whose pen was 'a 
 feather dropped from an angel's wing' (a description in 
 one of the journals which I cannot forbear repeating). 
 The common people read me gladly, but I was also much 
 patronised by the middle class; and society enjoyed my 
 publications, though they affected to be strangers to 
 them. My pet aversion was seriousness, and I regarded 
 the Puritans as showing execrable taste. I loved wars, 
 or rather stories culled from the battlefield, scenes of 
 carnage, and dying farewells from a young man, generally 
 in the Guards. I was a perfect king at sunsets, or the 
 depiction of countries where the blood ran riot, where 
 monks were tempted and where nuns were suddenly 
 aware of impulses which made them blush as they con- 
 templated their vows. 
 
 "My stories were, for the most part, Byron-and- water, 
 but I was careful to introduce a large vein of religion, sat- 
 isfying the conscience of the reader and enabling daugh- 
 ters to assure their mothers that the book was not only
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 137 
 
 entrancing but all right. I did my best to soften the 
 world, and am glad to think that I never overtaxed the 
 intelligence, but acted as a hammock in which my wor- 
 shippers could swing to and fro, as they lazily drank 
 in the honey of my flowing words. The curate served 
 me well, and once I felt moved to subscribe to a fund for 
 his better support, having found him a certain draw as I 
 pictured the neophyte, gifted with unrivalled eloquence, 
 seldom having time for his food, and well-nigh dying of 
 consumption. He is saved, in the nick of time, by the 
 daughter of a millionaire, who, having found that he has 
 pawned his penultimate suit, whisks him off to the 
 Riviera and is later united to him at St. George's, Han- 
 over Square. 
 
 "The hospitals, too, brought me no small gain, and 
 some of my nurses are considered immortal. In spotless 
 uniforms, they hung over the patient and moistened his 
 lips, preparatory to his convalescence, when most of 
 them felt that their hearts ached with an unutterable 
 void. This was my style, though from time to time I 
 assumed profound learning, until I was called 'awfully 
 deep,' without neglecting the ingredient of wonder as to 
 what it all meant, or how it would end in the last chapter. 
 I regarded work as vulgar, and nearly all my subjects had 
 white hands, while I was strong on suicides, elopements, 
 big game shooting, and a few other distractions which 
 made an hour pass like a minute, cheated the slow train, 
 and beguiled the week-end. Were I asked what I did, 
 I should find it difficult to answer, having been no advo- 
 cate of doing, but rather of dreaming and of transform-
 
 138 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 ing boresome business into a dolcefar niente, spent in a 
 blossomed bower. 
 
 "All this secured for me large profits, to which I preten- 
 ded complete indifference, being far removed, in the eyes 
 of my readers, from anything so banal as a bank balance. 
 Yet this it was which regulated my plans and about which I 
 was mainly occupied as my pen flew over the paper, in- 
 spired by a vision of wealth and indulgence in my special 
 foibles. It was meat and drink to me to hear myself 
 talked about, and if I chanced upon a place where my 
 books were not the vogue, I immediately found it dull 
 and changed my quarters for a more appreciative climate. 
 Even my powers fail to describe my self-centredness, and 
 there was a fascination in my prolific productiveness 
 which defies words. 
 
 "Were I questioned as to whether I had a shadow of 
 regret, my answer would be in the negative, so inebriated 
 was I with the thought of those countless volumes which 
 my habit was to turn out quarterly, and which, after a 
 judicious reclame, attained such popularity that a per- 
 son was reckoned a fool if he had not perused their pages. 
 At this moment, instead of an avowal, which I believe 
 was the primary object of my coming here, I should pre- 
 fer to fead to your Lordship some of my most moving 
 and exquisite fancies, dashed off when the muse inspired 
 me, which I feel sure would deeply touch even a serious 
 person like yourself. I am afraid I have forgotten such 
 details as my own people, for I made a point of burying 
 all humble associations, however virtuous, desiring to be 
 known under a name which I refrain from mentioning,
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 139 
 
 as some power prevents further deception. There is my 
 confession, if it deserves to be so called; and I trust that 
 my effusion has been in the best taste, without causing 
 you the smallest displeasure, but, on the other hand, 
 contributing a graceful diversion." 
 
 The advocate was hard put to it to defend this darling 
 of the lending libraries. Though his single thought 
 since his client's birth had been the evolution of his soul, 
 he felt that he had miserably failed. He had indeed 
 done his best, but he had discovered that the gods them- 
 selves depend upon reciprocity. Constantly, when he 
 had knocked at the door of the Sentimentalist's heart, he 
 had found him out, until he came to the conclusion that 
 there was nothing to be at home. He had waited, times 
 without number, till he should be on his back, or, better 
 still, fail in one of his productions, but he was always re- 
 markably well, never formed the centre-piece of a tragedy, 
 and became, increasingly, a proverb for endless edi- 
 tions. The prisoner's friend was, however, equal to 
 the occasion because of the love in his heart, and nerved 
 himself to plead with extra vigour by reminding himself 
 that his subject was an immortal soul. 
 
 "I rise, my Lord, to crave your mercy, though not to 
 interfere with your justice, seeing that the accused is to 
 be pitied for having become impervious to truth. I, who 
 have never ceased to care for him, find it hard to offer 
 any excuse for the methods of his life, but I fearlessly 
 maintain that, with his temperament, the result was 
 inevitable, and that the public taste in demanding what 
 he supplied was largely to blame. My contention is
 
 140 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 that no one was compelled to read him, and that the slope 
 which led to this present descent was made dangerously 
 easy by all associated with the transaction. He had his 
 better moments, and I have known him cry over some of 
 his own books, though I am bound to own that it never 
 impaired his health. 
 
 "The most lenient view of his conduct is that, in the 
 process, he became impregnated with the hatefulness of 
 pain, the tedium of virtue, and the discomfort of disci- 
 pline, forces not only helpful but necessary to the forma- 
 tion of character. My client never intended to do 
 positive harm; in fact, from what I know of him, he 
 cannot be accused of having had any intentions at all. 
 Eaten up by a sense of self which became a monomania, he 
 wrote not so much to amuse, not so much to cause a thrill, 
 as to be in the public eye, and your Lordship will concede 
 that, when this obsession arrives at a certain point, its 
 victim is incurable. 
 
 "It is also true that he was by no means proof against 
 the money which poured in, being able to surround him- 
 self with every comfort, to adopt aesthetic tastes, and to 
 pose as one of the immortals. I rejoice, for his sake, that 
 he has come up for judgment, since there remains in him 
 much which might become great if transformed by the 
 alchemy of hardship. His imagination suggests a Catholi- 
 cism and knowledge of the heart which your Lordship 
 will not throw away, and I pray that you may consider 
 him in the light of his age, so that, in his re-making, your 
 judgment may not incline to the side of harshness. My 
 longing is that this man, whom I love in proportion
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 141 
 
 to his need, may rise as a phoenix from his ashes to a 
 nobler purpose and to a cleaner virility." 
 
 The Judge looked stern but sorrowful, and in his ques- 
 tions to the accused betrayed surprise at the arrest of 
 mental development in a race thus easily gulled. 
 
 "I would like to ask whether you considered the effect 
 of your rubbish on your readers." 
 
 "I must respectfully demur at the word 'rubbish,' and 
 as I was a slave to the artistic temperament, it goes with- 
 out saying that I considered no one else." 
 
 "Were you conscious of the insincerity of what you 
 called your 'work'?" 
 
 "To be frank, I was unconscious of anything except 
 la gloire, and the pay." 
 
 "Were you never aware of the untruth with which 
 you clothed everything you touched, producing a glam- 
 our entirely non-existent, and paralysing the energies of 
 your patrons?" 
 
 "I regarded reality as dull and bourgeois, while the 
 term working-man jarred on my nerves." 
 
 "You have never regretted enervating youth and thus 
 helping it to fall an easy prey to the temptations which 
 it was bound to meet? " 
 
 "No, indeed. One of my favourite proverbs was that 
 the man who loves not wine, woman, and song remains a 
 fool his whole life long." 
 
 "Did you know anything of the high life and even 
 royalty which you so often described? " 
 
 "I found that there were more ways than one of getting 
 accurate information on the subject, and that at no great
 
 i 4 2 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 cost. It is interesting to note that what is said in the 
 chamber can be published on the housetop for a con- 
 sideration." 
 
 "Were you never staggered at the waste of time for 
 which you were answerable, or at the hours spent over 
 the worthless folly of your feuilletons? " 
 
 "I have already said that this was nothing to me, and 
 it was not my affair how people lived or how people 
 died." 
 
 "I suppose it did not come home to you that you 
 ruined the peace of many a home and perceptibly added 
 to the senselessness of your generation? " 
 
 "So long as I scored heavily, I refused to contemplate 
 such horrors, which I failed to connect in the remotest 
 degree with my efforts." 
 
 "Did you ever genuinely love? Did your heart ever 
 ache, and were you ever carried away, to the loss of your- 
 self, in favour of another? " 
 
 "I have always objected to intensity, and when I took 
 to myself a wife, it was with cool deliberation, being 
 careful that she should have both title and income. I 
 was not in the least ashamed to live for a while upon her 
 ladyship, which I looked on as paying her a compli- 
 ment." 
 
 "Your prayers and your inner life?" 
 
 "I preferred a religion full of superstitions and legends, 
 and of a historic past associated with mysteries and pic- 
 turesque worship, with the least possible allusion to 
 ethics. It pleased me, and I missed it whenever I found 
 myself deprived of its melodrama and warmth."
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 143 
 
 "You appear to have been unconscious that touching 
 the ark might bring about your death." 
 
 " A charming story that, but I cannot see its bearing 
 on the present day." 
 
 "And you did not think of what might happen to your 
 country if it was in danger, or that it might one day need 
 all the grit and all the go which you did your best ruth- 
 lessly to destroy?" 
 
 "I confess that more than once I drew such a picture, 
 but I was careful so to fill it in with pomp and love that 
 fear or unrest was soon forgotten." 
 
 "I presume you would have discarded the notion of 
 hell, or after consequences of any kind as following a life 
 bereft of high purpose and careless of ruin in its train? " 
 
 "With all respect, hell is a word which is erased from 
 polite society; and, as for after consequences, my ideas 
 of deity amounted to a floating essence in which lovers 
 could be united to eternal music, wafted from ethereal 
 spheres." 
 
 At last the Judge .showed manifest signs of distress 
 at being thus defeated in his attempt to extract from 
 the Sentimentalist one shade of pathos. 
 
 "I have vainly tried," he said, "in my questions, to 
 furnish the gentlest hint of the damage you may have 
 done in your passage through the world. I would now 
 point out to you that they who are at the back of actions 
 are often more guilty than they who commit them. The 
 responsibility attaching to authorship cannot be over- 
 stated, and that pen, which in other hands has proved 
 one of the greatest blessings the world has ever known,
 
 144 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 has in yours been the reverse. I am aware of the piety 
 with which your books were interlarded, I know of the 
 references to the loftiest and purest sentiments with 
 which you gilded the pill before it was taken. I grant 
 you had a touch of genius, or rather a rumble wit, and 
 that your books have served to chase away many a dull 
 hour, but your sin lies in not caring what you wrote 
 compared to what you got. Once let this be the standard 
 of a writer, there is no limit to the curse he may bring. 
 
 "Your crime was that you enervated instead of brac- 
 ing, that you tempted instead of inspiring, and that 
 you supplied a series of mirages which misrepresented 
 facts to the peril of your pupils. You made men glory 
 in sin rather than loathe it, and you treated women as 
 channels of their indulgence rather than ideals by which 
 they might be assisted towards better and higher things. 
 You little know what you did when you tampered with 
 the young, whom you should have stiffened for their 
 campaign, but whom you did your utmost to render 
 unfit for the battle before them. You cheapened sorrow 
 and reduced love to a sickening sentiment the mother 
 of sloth and sensual desire. 
 
 "You were as a serpent in the garden of the world, 
 enticing it to eat of the tree in its midst and, without a 
 single tear, watching men and women as they were driven 
 from Paradise. You dared to make capital out of the 
 most sacred professions and, under the excuse of popular 
 treatment, you brought the highest places into disrepute. 
 In a word, you made sin exceeding easy, and virtue ex- 
 ceeding hard, while the trivial round and the common
 
 THE SENTIMENTALIST 145 
 
 task became impossible to those drugged by your ro- 
 mances. Believe me, there are thousands living to-day 
 who are worse because you sapped their energies, roused 
 their passions, and rendered them indifferent to the calls 
 of country. 
 
 "The result of such influences as yours is that climbing 
 of every kind is at a discount, and that the education of 
 women, in the face of the finest efforts, is frustrated. 
 What is still more mischievous, the horror of it will be- 
 come less and less recognised so long as people like your- 
 self write as if man's chief interest in the other sex 
 centred round the harlot or the heiress. You have to 
 learn that you and your fellow scribblers do much to 
 prevent progress, to throttle civic aspirations, and to 
 reproduce the spirit of the harem in a Teutonic people. 
 Herein lies the deadliness of your output, and it is hard 
 to use words too strong in insisting on the call for a 
 tonic if the Empire about which you ranted is to be 
 saved. You must accept it from me that your life has 
 been anything but a kind one. nor can I imagine a more 
 terrible punishment than one day awakening to the fact 
 that, like the prophet of old, you have for love of gold 
 betrayed your nation by rendering it a prey to its pas- 
 sions and, as a consequence, to its enemies. 
 
 "It may take you some time to arrive at it, but you 
 must be taught that sweet poison is more fatal than a 
 revolver shot, and that no man has the right, by a single 
 word, to add to the temptations of his fellows, who have 
 too many without his aid. You will have to undergo 
 a course of hard labour till you discover that sentimen-
 
 146 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 talism no longer comes in. Nothing short of this will 
 get into you the fear of God or of anything else. You 
 will be reduced to the necessity for action, when you 
 will shudder at the poetic as unable to see you through 
 the hour of stress. That stress must last till you have 
 ceased to employ as a scapegoat the odious excuse of 
 your artistic temperament. The very term shall be- 
 come an abomination to you when you have discovered 
 that it is viler than straightforward yieldings to nature. 
 In its stead you shall, in your cell, make acquaintance 
 with true romance, and with the vastness of the field 
 which is calling for imagination, tempered by trial, to 
 engage in the highest service. You shall find that you 
 were not born in vain, and that no novel half so enthusing 
 has ever been written as the volume, unsoiled by amo- 
 rous suggestion, which you shall yet produce. 
 
 "There will steal into your heart by degrees a new 
 patriotism which will cause you to long for your coun- 
 try's good. You shall learn through sorrow that she 
 needs men strong, clean, vigorous, pious, and women 
 chaste, tender, useful, devout, if the honour of her homes 
 is to be preserved. You may fall many times, but in 
 the long run you shall win. When you have achieved 
 manliness and modesty, into your hands shall once more 
 be put your pen, with which you shall strive to cancel 
 your previous trifling. You shall make it a rule with- 
 out exception to write only such stories as go to the 
 breeding of heroes and heroines. You will find your- 
 self outworn by each effort, however small, and the 
 writer shall be anonymous, but his work shall be strong."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 
 
 THERE was nothing about him to betray his call- 
 ing, and he might have been taken for a most re- 
 spectable gentleman who regularly attended his 
 chapel and was a pattern of benevolence. Closer in- 
 spection revealed a sinister look which created suspicion, 
 making it difficult to imagine how he could elicit sym- 
 pathy on the part of him who was to conduct the trial. 
 Here again, as in other instances, the impression grew 
 that, so long as people were chiefly their own enemies, 
 they were subjects for boundless compassion, but that 
 the worst were those who, from the vantage ground of 
 safety, tempted others to their destruction. Compared 
 with this offence weakness became insignificant, and the 
 chasm between sin and wickedness was self-evident. 
 The absurdity of portraying Satan as an object of ab- 
 horrence speaks for itself, nor would his victims be so 
 numerous if they could discern his approach. The 
 present instance was a case in point, and it was not sur- 
 prising that many should fall into the toils of this bland 
 but pestilential individual. 
 
 The Bookmaker was suavity itself, and unmoved by 
 the smallest qualms of a conscience which had long been 
 
 147
 
 i 4 8 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 seared. The thought of judgment was foreign to his 
 nature, the sense of right and wrong having been done 
 to death by a combination of good-fellowship and craft, 
 preventing penitence. All efforts failed to detect the 
 weak point in his harness through which an arrow from 
 the Judge might find its way. One was more than usually 
 thrown back on infinite Love as alone able to change the 
 hard rock into flowing water. 
 
 The entrance of the Judge being delayed, possibly by 
 design, the accused began, in spite of himself, to turn 
 things over in his mind, thus illustrating the value of 
 solitary confinement for a certain type of prisoner. The 
 isolation evidently told on the Bookmaker, and the 
 stillness presented an unendurable contrast to the shout- 
 ing of the odds amid the flare of the race-course. All 
 his self-confidence gone through the process of thought, 
 alarm took possession of him. By the time the Judge 
 came in terror was written on his face, and he wore the 
 look of a man who had staked his all on the wrong horse 
 and lost, with nothing but black ruin before him. The 
 Judge was gracious as ever, though no one could have 
 mistaken the difference when he had to deal with cases 
 calculated to evoke his sterner side. Not that he was 
 not kindness itself as he set himself to the task of break- 
 ing a heart which he intended to heal, but only the in- 
 itiated could foresee the line he was likely to take. 
 
 "I rise," the Bookmaker said without any prelimi- 
 naries, "to state my case, from no desire to make an elab- 
 orate confession, but solely because I find myself in a 
 Court of Justice from which I cannot escape. Till now
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 149 
 
 it has never meant for me more than the payment of a 
 trifling fine; and, if you expect me to express sorrow for 
 what I have done, I fail to see where regret comes in. 
 What I say is that there is nothing like sport, that horse- 
 racing is an honourable institution, and that the man 
 who does not patronise it or liquor is no patriot. To my 
 thinking the country would soon be ruined without it, 
 and I am glad to know that among my clients I not only 
 numbered the nobility and gentry but could go higher 
 still if I cared to show my books. I don't suppose that 
 even you would say there was any harm in having ' a bit 
 on/ and the whole fun lies in the uncertainty. Again, 
 what I say is that it is a grand sight to see thousands en- 
 joying themselves in the open air, watching a struggle 
 between as noble creatures as God ever made, but still 
 more taking their pleasure in making bets, with good 
 cheer and fair women thrown in. I don't see how a man 
 could improve on it, and it would be a crime and a shame 
 if betting were put down. 
 
 "Not that I used to bet myself; I was a family man 
 and had my own to look after. When I stood under my 
 umbrella, you may take my word I was as sober as a 
 judge, though I liked to hear the corks popping and to 
 feel that things were fairly humming. Naturally this 
 made for trade, and when I returned of an evening, con- 
 tent with the net result (though I had my bad days like 
 other people), I slept like a child and looked forward to 
 the next meeting. I took a real pride in my home, and 
 congratulate myself on having added largely to it since 
 I got on, but at first it was a poor game, and I had to do
 
 150 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 many things which I would not have stooped to later. 
 Once on your feet, it is wonderful how you can keep your- 
 self respectable, and even do a bit of good by the way, so 
 that again I say that horse-racing is a noble sport and, 
 if every one has to live somehow, this is about as good a 
 way as I can imagine. Why, I knew our minister well, 
 and his wife and mine were the best of friends, since of 
 course I shut off my public life when the day was done, 
 and, if anything was needed in the parish, I was not the 
 last to subscribe. I was always strong about keeping 
 Sunday, which I looked on as part of the Tory consti- 
 tution, so I closed my accounts on Saturday night and 
 didn't believe in making it a day of business. 
 
 "I know this sounds a contradiction, but there it is, 
 and you must take me as I am. I could never have be- 
 come the success I proved to be if I had not been a care- 
 ful man, and if I had myself been a prey to the excitement 
 through which I steadily built up my fortune. I don't 
 mind owning, that when I talk in this strain I begin to feel 
 more uncomfortable than I ever have before, but you 
 see it is all new to me, and so long as I can remember I 
 have had no time to think, or, if I had, I tried to square 
 my conscience by religious observances and by kidding 
 myself that I did no injury to any one. Do to others as 
 you would be done by, say I, which is a better sermon 
 than you hear preached by most parsons. The odd thing 
 is that none of my youngsters have ever been on a race- 
 course, nor ever shall, though how I reconcile that fact 
 with all I said about sport I cannot explain. The world 
 is a queer place, and I expect, if the truth were known,
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 151 
 
 most of us are a bit of a mixture. If I could once have 
 seen the wrong of it, I believe I should have been the first 
 to give it up, but where would have been the good of 
 making such a promise after the interest on my capital 
 gave me enough to live on? If I had my way, though, 
 I should stop betting among the poorer classes, but for 
 those who have the money to throw away, I cannot as 
 yet understand why it is bad, and if you can make this 
 clear to me I shall esteem it a favour. 
 
 "The fact is that my life was more of a routine than 
 outsiders would believe, until I became so artful, without 
 exactly deceiving, that I could reckon on my earnings 
 each year within a few hundreds. Excuse my remarking 
 that, though you have not said a word, you, as it were, 
 put me out of countenance, and I hardly like to own to 
 the real motive which prompted me and which your 
 silence seems to invite. You see my great desire was to 
 build up a family, and I had what is called the hoarding 
 instinct. I cannot quite say where I got it from, except 
 that I had the Jew in my blood, but we have been Chris- 
 tians for some time and, though my father did happen to 
 keep a public house, he was a staunch teetotaler. I 
 never had much book-learning, which I hated, but I saw 
 that I could do better on the turf, so I began by degrees, 
 needless to say under another name. It came to me 
 naturally, and I liked the company into which it brought 
 me, for it gratified me to rub shoulders with the noblest 
 in the land. As for the young ones who plunged rather 
 heavily and were not able to pay, I made it a rule not to 
 be too lenient with them, as I had been taught to be a
 
 152 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 great believer in honesty, and it was bad for them to be 
 let off too easily. Besides, you always found that there 
 was something they could raise money on to save their 
 good name, and, if they were reduced to it, they could 
 pick up an heiress and recover that way. If you look 
 into it, it is not exactly fine, and it gets worse every mo- 
 ment as it grows plainer. Sometimes, on settling day, 
 my heart would nearly break at the stories I had to listen 
 to, but it was a comfort to see my bank balance growing 
 and to feel that I could send my boys to one of the best 
 public schools where they would be able to hold their 
 own and, in after years, to hobnob with the aristocracy. 
 "My girls, also, were extra pretty, and I knew toe 
 much of life to doubt that it would be difficult to get 
 them well placed; this made me the Bookmaker I was, till 
 I became a proverb for a good heart coupled with per- 
 fect integrity. Still, I had to be careful, which is why I 
 kept humble and remained a Dissenter, but my children 
 seemed terribly struck with the Church and it was 
 grand to hear them talking of its traditions, though I 
 fancy my own forebears could have quoted longer ones. 
 This is by the way, but if I have not filled up the spaces 
 it is because I prefer limiting myself to the outline, and 
 the shading is dark enough. But you will allow that it 
 is something to found a name, to leave the world further 
 on than your parents, and to think of your descendants 
 as one day in the enclosure without knowing, as I trust 
 they never may, that their ancestor shouted, 'Two to 
 one, bar one.' (Here the Bookmaker evidently for- 
 got, in favour of social success, his diatribe against racing
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 153 
 
 for his own.) This is my position, and how can I com- 
 plain when I have done so well, and when there is not a 
 corner in my life which I have not so arranged that no one 
 may be able to throw a stone, except, of course, a few 
 who never would, as it would mean exposing themselves? 
 
 "Your face asks me how I can bear the thought of 
 what I have left behind, but, to be frank, the only thing 
 that occurs to me is the amount of money I have saved. 
 Much as I should like to feel that blessed pity which I 
 hold shows man at his best, it is useless to say I do, else 
 I should have to give the whole lot back, and then where 
 would my children be? The boys at the board school 
 and the girls going out to service! Don't be too hard 
 on me, then, for God's sake, don't be too hard, for I have 
 had a fairly bad time already, and there was hell enough 
 on the turf, though to men like me it became our only 
 heaven. Yet before I sit down let me admit that I 
 would rather be one person than any favour you could 
 grant me, and that one person respected, straightforward, 
 with a pile of money to give away. What I long for 
 most of all is to be able to express my love with my real 
 name attached (which I have written on a slip of paper) , 
 and that it should be done under the auspices of the 
 religion which I have denied, and the denial of which 
 is my worst shame." 
 
 The advocate felt that he was dealing with a gigantic 
 evil, the more fatal because officially sanctioned and 
 effectively disguised. He recognised, no man better, 
 the opposite poles in the character of the prisoner, who 
 had often admitted him to his company, though he had
 
 iS4 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 seldom taken his advice. He was moved by the impera- 
 tive need of humanity to get outside of itself, and by the 
 sardonic fact that the most successful traders on this 
 score were those who took special care not to give way 
 to it. Had the Bookmaker been a drunkard, or immoral, 
 or a gambler, his task would have been a simpler one. 
 He was oppressed by the knowledge that the heads of 
 this profession represented a phlegmatic considered sys- 
 tem which, with a hellish aspect of harmlessness, cast 
 an organised network over the whole community. He 
 mentally saw one of the loveliest spots in Europe defiled 
 by the same cunning, followed by a vision of the votaries 
 of fashion caught in the same web, down to the lowest 
 gambling den in every capital. He was thinking of the 
 touts in the streets, the factory girls tempted to risk 
 their pence, and the innumerable idiots who, without 
 knowing the end of a horse, hoped to make a coup with- 
 out work, emptied the till, cheated their masters, broke 
 a wife's heart, ended behind the bars, or made a hole in 
 the river through remorse. He then glanced at this 
 model of correctness in the dock, whom he classed with 
 the charming croupier in his immaculate dress suit. Yet 
 he did not forget the other side of the picture and much 
 in the Bookmaker which afforded a plea in his defence. 
 He realised, as only they who love can, that this man 
 had not intended a tithe of the evil he had caused. 
 He took into consideration that he was extraordinarily 
 ignorant, however cute, and that his middle-class nature, 
 without any actual villainy, laid him open to wiles which 
 it was beyond him to perceive.
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 155 
 
 "I am moved, my Lord," said the advocate, "to 
 plead for the prisoner by a strong sense of duty and of 
 sorrow for the obtuseness which made it possible for 
 such a character to adopt such a career. I have long 
 been on terms of intimacy with him, but, try as I would, 
 could never bring him to face the anomaly of his heart 
 and conduct. Sociability, which was his special feature, 
 conduced to his popularity among those who allowed 
 him to fleece them. What impresses me most, and it 
 must mean still more to your Lordship, is the impulse 
 the accused has given to a tendency inherent in some 
 of the most gifted of the race. I refer to the distortion 
 of that quality of abandonment without which few great 
 things have been achieved, and apart from which most 
 high endeavour would be unknown. 
 
 "The history of the prisoner is fraught with sadness, 
 and he has related it with an ingenuousness which an- 
 ticipates much I might have said on his behalf. With 
 Semitic tendencies strong in him, his nature would 
 appear to have been warped by previous treachery to 
 that grandest of creeds, so that he seems to have re- 
 tained many of the worst characteristics of his nation, 
 while discarding the rules and the reverence prominent 
 in its best exponents. He was therefore a religious man 
 without being religious, and the root of the evil lay in 
 his continuing the cowardice which influenced those be- 
 fore him to profess belief in the Crucified because He 
 had become the fashion of the day. To please all men 
 became his object and, in the end, his snare, for he soon 
 slipped into ingratiating himself for his own purposes.
 
 156 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 He had a natural leaning towards bedizenment, though 
 he made a rule of avoiding diamonds, but the Shylock 
 in him was unable to resist the passion for speculation. 
 
 "He did not for one instant regard betting as a crime; 
 his great idea was to build up a fortune, which he looked 
 on as a sign of the Divine favour, in the same way as 
 the patriarchs treated an increase in their flocks or 
 herds. For his actions I have no extenuating words, 
 being aghast at the self-deception of which men may 
 become capable, but, since my office is to call attention 
 to the best in my client, I boldly assert that there has 
 seldom been a better husband or a better father than 
 the prisoner. His devotion to the memory of his par- 
 ents was admirable, and so generously inclined was he, 
 that no wonder the minister found him to be a good 
 man and more charitable than many in his congregation 
 otherwise employed. Reason tells me that the accused 
 will have to undergo a heavy sentence, but I would ask 
 you to accommodate it to his moral vision. I feel con- 
 vinced that your Lordship's object is to restore the true 
 man which flourished at his hearth, but was withered by 
 his contact with the world." 
 
 The Judge listened to both prisoner and advocate 
 with rapt attention, it being evident that the subtlety of 
 the situation had not escaped him. You could not but 
 feel that he would willingly have risked his life not only 
 for his friends but for the many, though he would have 
 stamped as selfish a similar venture made for sheer 
 sensation. He addressed the Bookmaker with a respect 
 increased by his advocate's statement of the case, though
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 157 
 
 it made his comments the more cutting in dealing with 
 the occupation to which the accused had been devoted. 
 
 "Considering your kindness of heart," he said, "did 
 you never picture to yourself the havoc you caused in 
 countless homes, whilst so attached to your own?" 
 
 "I can't say I did; it all came under the heading of 
 business." 
 
 "Were you not struck by the lowness of the surround- 
 ings of a race-course, which would never obtain save for 
 speculation in some form or other?" 
 
 "I disliked it extremely and, as I became better known, 
 I kept more aloof from it. But I argue that human na- 
 ture is human nature, and things are working themselves 
 out somehow." 
 
 "Did you feel any remorse over those mere boys whom 
 you deliberately sent to perdition, while you flattered 
 them with an obsequiousness beyond words, until you 
 got them into your clutches?" 
 
 "Now and then, before I had been long at it, but cus- 
 tom deadens, and soon I never gave it a thought." 
 
 "How far do you reckon that the patronage of the 
 great had a share in making you the public curse which 
 you became?" 
 
 "It went a good way and helped to banish any sense 
 of sin, provided it could be conducted so pleasantly." 
 
 "Did it never strike you that their women-kind were 
 imbibing the same spirit and were insensibly becoming 
 harder and more brutal in proportion as they were defy- 
 ing their gentler nature?" 
 
 "Yes, it did come over me, and that is the part that
 
 158 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 revolted me, but it became evident that, save for their 
 presence, our best meetings would have been almost 
 empty." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that you were not stung 
 when you saw some young girl make her first bet and 
 knew without the shadow of a doubt that she was on 
 the slant downwards, till one day no true womanhood 
 would be left?" 
 
 "I did feel all that, especially in the case of a beautiful 
 face and a real lady; but if you ask me such pointed ques- 
 tions, I shall begin to think myself akin to a murderer, 
 which is the last thing I contemplated." 
 
 "Did you realise that betting has a lurid side, that it 
 is the enemy of the sport which it affects, that from the 
 highest it percolates to the lowest, that the press is 
 poisoned by it, that women congregate together to gloat 
 over the turn of a card, that men are frenzied by the 
 wine of it till they care for no living soul on earth, that 
 the boys who play pitch and toss in the streets are 
 qualifying for criminals, and that, once this thing has 
 become a habit, honour disappears and the fall only de- 
 pends on the strength of the trial?" 
 
 "Now that you say so I know that every word is true, 
 but the fear of the Lord would have prevented me from 
 doing such things myself, and God knows I never asso- 
 ciated my calling with this general disaster." 
 
 "Do you know so little of life as not to understand 
 that the gambler and the devotee have a common long- 
 ing for infinity which lands its victims in heaven or hell? " 
 
 "You are getting too deep for me, and in my old re-
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 159 
 
 ligion this was hardly known. I have heard it spoken 
 of about the best Jew who ever lived, but surely you 
 paint matters a bit too black, and there is a lighter aspect 
 which helps to pass the time and gives a flip to things 
 otherwise shockingly monotonous." 
 
 "I notice this is the excuse you all use, but it is not 
 in the least true and is never quoted by the sufferers 
 themselves, at least before their convalescence. Tell 
 me whether, if you had the chance of returning whence 
 you came, you would continue as you were before?" 
 
 " I doubt whether I should feel the harm of it for long, 
 and I should be drawn back into the vortex, whatever 
 resolves I might make." 
 
 "How so, after hearing all that is involved?" 
 
 "Your presence and your charm have changed my 
 point of view for the moment, but it would not last if I 
 were alone for any length of time. My only chance is 
 to keep entirely quit of it, seeing that it would be a 
 much more deadly thing to revert after my eyes have 
 been opened." 
 
 "Does not your heart ache now, or even if you are 
 still a prey to this inclining, would you not do all in your 
 power to minimise it? " 
 
 "Indeed I would, but I must become altered myself, 
 and I leave it to you, in whom I feel some of the grandeur 
 of the ancient teachings against which I have rebelled, 
 but which I secretly admire, to solve the problem of 
 my reforming." 
 
 "You are too conscious," said the Judge, "of the 
 discrepancy between your religion and the ruin which
 
 160 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 you have effected to need any words of rebuke from me. 
 After your own exposure, the speech of your advocate, 
 and your replies to my questions, it is unnecessary for 
 me to point out either the extent or the horror of the 
 gambling spirit, whatever form it may take. The crime 
 of your calling consists in the fostering of one of the 
 worst instincts in men, resultant in a callous selfishness 
 deserving of the strongest reproof. Those who take 
 advantage of this tendency are bound to endure much 
 tribulation before they find their soul. Whether they 
 themselves are remote from the scene or not makes 
 little difference, and just so far as they evade the obloquy 
 of direct methods, must their penalty be increased. The 
 man who tempts another to this thing is doing a deadly- 
 injury, which becomes worse when a woman is the sub- 
 ject of his scheming. That laws should be passed to 
 make it more difficult is obvious, but it has always been 
 held in this Court that no change takes place until voli- 
 tion is affected. Sin cannot be eradicated by compul- 
 sion, and until individuals learn the true object of 
 adventure, they will never become free of this impulse, 
 which is alone possible through its consecration. 
 
 "For yourself, I understand your lack of understand- 
 ing; and the true part of you, which is the domestic side, 
 shall by degrees permeate your being. The vulgarity 
 of your design is tempered by love for your offspring, 
 who were its object; and, when I consider the example of 
 those among whom your lot was cast and who ought to 
 have known better, my decision is disarmed of vindic- 
 tiveness. Your sympathy has made you suffer already
 
 THE BOOKMAKER 161 
 
 on this count, but this is nothing to the tortures you 
 will have to endure. You must painfully grope your 
 way back to the religion which you secretly love and 
 which ideally insists that each should have a trade and 
 that none should give their money on usury or take 
 reward against the innocent. When this truth has be- 
 come your own, you will regret the course you took 
 through your blindness, and you will value no gold save 
 that which you have acquired through the sweat of 
 your brow, though you will glory in sharing it with the 
 hungry, never turning your face from any poor man. 
 Till then you must needs be unhappy, but I cannot re- 
 lieve you of your burden, nor would I if I could, since 
 such a purgatory affords the only source of subsequent 
 peace. 
 
 "When you have learned this you will become a 
 champion of your own creed, but you will find that all, 
 except a minority, will refuse to listen to you and will, as 
 now, insult the faith which you shall adopt in its original 
 intention. I dismiss you, full of love on your behalf, and 
 assured that I am outlining for you the only course 
 which can ever bring you rest. The result shall be a 
 single person. You shall never again tempt another, but 
 shall gamble away your best in following the footsteps of 
 the Noblest of your race, who staked Himself to win 
 the world. When you deserve it, you shall be known by 
 your old name as a restorer instead of destroyer of 
 ancient landmarks among the chosen people."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PARASITE 
 
 A I INSIPID and restless person came into the 
 Court. It would have been difficult to tell her 
 age, which evidently had been the same for a 
 long time, and she brought with her a monotony that 
 was abroad before she opened her lips. She was passa- 
 bly well dressed, and among her ornaments might be 
 noticed a cross dangling harmlessly on a chain. She had 
 attended so many meetings that the present one hardly 
 affected her, though she anticipated something out of 
 the common, as hitherto she had evaded anything in the 
 nature of a collision with truth. Not that she was not 
 pleasant and more than ordinarily refined, but she gave 
 the impression of being faded and of having sampled 
 all the sensations without having dared to feel one of 
 them. 
 
 She was in a hurry to get to the next meeting, though 
 where it was she did not exactly know, but she was sure 
 it was somewhere, and that among the speakers were one 
 or two who were bound to be original. This very busy 
 woman was nothing if not eccentric, as she lived in a 
 society dependent on drugs labelled "delightful and not in 
 the least dangerous." She played with what she called 
 
 162
 
 THE PARASITE 163 
 
 her reticule, then gazed round to see if any one was look- 
 ing, and wondered when the others would arrive. But 
 when she found she had come to a stock-taking alto- 
 gether different from the sales she haunted, she didn't 
 like it a bit, and would have had an attack of hysteria, 
 but there was no one to carry her out. She took refuge 
 in studying snippets, of which she seemed to have an in- 
 exhaustible supply, and a smile passed over her face as 
 she came across one more than usually chic or unortho- 
 dox. 
 
 The affair was rapidly growing uncanny, till she made up 
 her mind that she was going to assist at a seance, and that 
 some of "those dear spooks" would soon appear. The 
 most exacting critic would have been moved by a con- 
 dition so defenceless, so prevalent, and so eloquent of 
 uselessness. At last she looked up and, when she saw 
 the Judge, was terrified, for his face suggested to her 
 One of Whom she had chattered for years, but Whom 
 she knew less than did His enemies. If she had had 
 time, she would have got an introduction from some of 
 her innumerable friends who were intimate with him, but 
 the horror of the situation was that she was totally on 
 her own, and was being driven to some decision, which was 
 truly dreadful. Added to this, she was impelled to take 
 the initiative, a most indelicate proceeding, as previously 
 she had never got further than making one of an audi- 
 ence and writing countless letters about what had oc- 
 curred. 
 
 "I feel so shy," she began, "and I didn't at all like 
 coming here alone, but my maid was not ready, so I had
 
 164 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 to take the plunge, and here I am. Not that I am actu- 
 ally shy, for I can cackle to my heart's content if there 
 is any scandal going on, or about things that do not really 
 count, but I am beginning to be most uncomfortable, and 
 if it goes on much longer like this, I know that I shall 
 famt. I can't precisely make out what I have to tell 
 you, but if you will kindly correct me when I am wrong, I 
 will try to recite a sort of diary of my life, that is to say, 
 if it won't worry you. I should be so much happier if 
 I were talking to our Vicar, who is also my director. He 
 thoroughly understands me, and for the last twenty 
 years I have discussed all manner of interesting ques- 
 tions with him during a whole hour once a week, but I 
 never kept him longer than that, because he was such a 
 busy man. 
 
 "He had to do with dreadful things and used to tell me 
 stories sometimes that made my flesh creep, which was 
 delightful. I wonder whether you have ever been to 
 his church, but I cannot recall your face there. You 
 would like it immensely. I never missed a chance 
 when he was present, though I invariably slipped out 
 when he wasn't preaching. I felt so anxious when he 
 had a bad cold, and at the end of Lent he was so white 
 and drawn that he looked like a piece of paper with an 
 aureole round it, but he said the most beautiful things, 
 though I am afraid I can't remember any. 
 
 "Some of the curates were charming, and I cannot 
 think what I should have done without my church, which 
 filled up nearly all my time, though, as I grew wiser, I 
 took it more broadly and did not allow it to interfere
 
 THE PARASITE 165 
 
 with my plans. The dear Vicar often professed to be a 
 little shocked, but I playfully called it my evolution and, 
 as I was a generous supporter, he suffered me gladly - 
 not that I was by any means a fool. The clergy were 
 rather fond of me, and I had hoped that one day but 
 I won't go into that, as it did not come off, and there is a 
 blank here in my diary, marked by tears shed in secret, 
 but at the moment telling of real distress. 
 
 "As for the remainder of my time which I could spare 
 from my beloved church, I found all sorts of interests to 
 occupy it. I delighted in the newspapers, through which 
 I got to know nearly every one, without knowing any- 
 thing whatever about them. Of course the shops made 
 a considerable demand, and, being strictly economical, 
 though comfortably rich, I spent hours in buying trifles 
 which I often returned to be changed, as they didn't suit. 
 Then, oh, then, I lived in a delicious turmoil of modern 
 unbelief, patronised by striking people of a type you meet 
 nowhere else, who could not possibly have told you 
 their creed, though we all of us loved adventures, pro- 
 vided the seats were not more than a shilling. I wonder 
 if you have heard about these new movements and about 
 what is going to happen, and every kind of sensation, 
 which made me feel quite giddy and left me with a sense 
 that the world was such an interesting place, with barely 
 a moment to turn round; though I think the Vicar would 
 hardly have liked it if I had told him all the places I 
 went to. 
 
 "The theatres, too, were charming, and I scarcely ever 
 missed a piece which was in the least doubtful; it made
 
 i66 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 me so very sorry for those poor dears who must often be 
 tempted beyond endurance. I can't make out why no 
 one tempts me, and I find I can walk about alone in per- 
 fect safety, but the Vicar says this is because I was so well 
 brought up. I remember how wonderful he was one day 
 about the panoply of innocence, which I put down in my 
 special book where I kept my titbits, but of course it was 
 carefully locked up, as it would have been extremely 
 awkward if it had ever been discovered. In fact, I 
 arranged in my will that it should be cremated with me, 
 since such outpourings of my inmost being were too 
 sacred even for the Vicar to read. 
 
 "As for my family, and my people, I saw very little 
 of them, but, then, I was too busy. I made a rule of 
 remembering them at Christmas and I met then at funer- 
 als and weddings, so that I was by no means a stranger 
 to them, while it is impossible to keep up with those who 
 are not equally clever or intent on hearing all the novel- 
 ties. And now I think I have said everything, though 
 
 I should like to add that the Vicar " (Here the Judge 
 
 interposed that he thought the Vicar might look after 
 himself, but the lady cheerily continued.) "I was only 
 about to say that it all seems very beautiful, though I do 
 wish he was not quite so narrow, but, you see, he is not 
 psychical; yet, as I once told him, the only thing worth 
 living for is one's affinity. If you could tell me where to 
 find him, I should be so much obliged, after which I 
 hope to go on chasing several more throughout eternity, 
 so that it grows more and more interesting, though I am 
 not quite certain where I have got to now."
 
 THE PARASITE 167 
 
 At last the Judge, with a courtesy that never failed 
 him, even under pressure of this kind, informed the ac- 
 cused that she had best allow her advocate to continue 
 her cause, which she was not improving by her garrulity. 
 The advocate made a great effort to look serious, as he 
 found no little difficulty in realising the issues involved, 
 but he faced the folly of it and, without further delay, 
 addressed the Judge. 
 
 "I am here, my Lord, not only as counsel for the Par- 
 asite, but as an intimate friend. I had almost said too 
 intimate for my liking, since I could rarely impress her 
 with the reality of anything. This fault, however, fur- 
 nishes a plea for mercy, as I have gradually become con- 
 vinced that her brain must be at fault and that she has 
 suffered from many disadvantages. The very piety to 
 which she has alluded soon became a disease, nor had 
 she the smallest notion that she was using the sanctuary 
 itself for a nursery in which she played with every toy 
 she could lay her hands on. The fact is she never ceased 
 to be childish, though she was never childlike. 
 
 "I would not insist on this aspect of the subject did 
 I not largely trace it to the teaching which she received, 
 and to the unfortunate patience of those in whom at first 
 she placed implicit confidence. It is regrettable that 
 they were content to allow her to remain in the realm 
 of theory rather than risk the loss of her presence and 
 patronage by the slightest challenge to action. I feel 
 deeply moved by the thought of masses in a similar con- 
 dition, and beg respectfully to express my opinion that 
 better these sacred places should be empty than that they
 
 168 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 should supply a harbour of refuge for a self-indulgent 
 crowd, which becomes a glaring stumbling-block to the 
 strong and to the sincere. Your Lordship will agree that 
 they are probably more productive of agnosticism, or, at 
 least, absence from public worship than more serious 
 difficulties. 
 
 "Nevertheless, it is my duty to point out that much 
 good was mingled with her sloth and stupidity, though 
 I often did my best to warn her privately against a sen- 
 sationalism which became a necessity. It was impossi- 
 ble but that, incidentally, the spirit of goodness should 
 filter into her character; although I am willing to allow 
 that it was of a watery nature, I contend that otherwise 
 she might not have advanced even to the point she has 
 now reached. I am deeply sorry, my Lord, to make 
 these admissions, but I stand aghast at the twofold power 
 of convention and superstition when they make a com- 
 bined attack on the same soul. You will not be too 
 severe in your judgment towards these victims who are 
 so constituted that, if their idol for the time being as- 
 serted that black was white, they would heartily agree, 
 and regard the speaker in the light of an oracle. 
 
 "As to the remaining aspect of the case, I own that I 
 have a bad one, but I would lay stress on the avoidance 
 of effort characteristic of her age, the more so in the 
 case of the rather rich who can afford to be continually 
 on the move. It must be difficult for a real person like 
 yourself to measure such futility, or the advantage taken 
 of unemployed brains on almost every plane. Myriads 
 like this poor lady, who, had they been favoured by ad-
 
 THE PARASITE 169 
 
 versity, would have left a different record, are blind to 
 the fact that they are being slowly reduced to a state of 
 hopeless imbecility with which you must find it hard 
 to deal. 
 
 "Of one thing I would assure you namely, that the 
 Parasite was entirely ignorant of the burden she became. 
 She would have been startled to be told, whether in the 
 case of the clergy, or the shop assistants, or the various 
 purveyors of mild excitement whose company she 
 frequented, that she was regarded as an unmitigated 
 nuisance, whereas she honestly thought she was pain- 
 fully climbing a ladder which eventually reached the 
 skies. I have nothing to add save that I am grateful 
 that the issue no longer remains doubtful, nor have I 
 any fears but that, out of this utter lack of purpose, 
 your Lordship will point the way towards true stead- 
 fastness." 
 
 The Judge was disconcerted, and the impotence of 
 Heaven to cope with folly forced itself on his mind. Yet 
 he still evinced that optimism which is the infallible sign 
 of a true passion for souls, and of faith in their ultimate 
 triumph. 
 
 "I would like to ask you," he said, addressing the 
 accused with a gravity beyond her deserts, "was this 
 religion of yours at any time very much to you? Did 
 it count for a great deal, or did it merely serve as a pas- 
 time?" 
 
 "It was far more than the last, though I can't say 
 it was exactly the first, but, to tell the truth, I don't 
 know if I thought much about it."
 
 170 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "What was it then which caused you so continually 
 to frequent your church, and how could you listen to 
 this plethora of sermons without being influenced by 
 them?" 
 
 "I suppose it became a habit, as good as any other 
 and better than many, but I expect that I went on most 
 days because I had been the day before." 
 
 "What account would you give of your library of de- 
 votion and the complicated system of rules to which you 
 were such a slave?" 
 
 "They didn't bother me much, but I was rather un- 
 occupied, and they served a purpose in feeding my vora- 
 cious appetite for mystery." 
 
 "Was it long before you wearied of it?" 
 
 "Not very, but I actually stayed on several years 
 after that." 
 
 "From what motive?" 
 
 "Partly from custom and partly from a sense of 
 loyalty, as though I owed it to the place, but, quite in 
 the early days, it ceased to inspire me and became more 
 or less of a drudgery." 
 
 "Did it strike you that you might make it difficult for 
 your teachers, or bring contempt, so far as a single in- 
 dividual can, on what should be the most inspiring in- 
 stitution in any country? " 
 
 "I was brought up to regard the priesthood as im- 
 maculate, and designed to supply an opportunity of 
 romance with rectitude, which was my pet weakness." 
 
 "Did it not appear to you unfair to set them on a 
 pinnacle which they had no desire to occupy, and from
 
 THE PARASITE 171 
 
 which, if they fell, they became a subject for unmeasured 
 scorn? " 
 
 "They were the only people who were thoroughly 
 safe, and I could not live without sentiment of some kind, 
 or I should have had nothing to dream about when I 
 was alone." 
 
 Here a cloud passed over the Judge's face, telling of 
 his sympathy with men specially dear to him whose 
 task, if it was to prove worthy of itself, was nothing less 
 than superhuman. He sighed as he thought of the stu- 
 pidity that caused the best of them a severer trial than 
 a martyr's death, which they would have met without 
 flinching. He concluded that it was wiser to make no 
 further reference to a subject beyond the Parasite's 
 appreciation. 
 
 ''Were you interested in great names, in the needs of 
 the sisterhood, or in the calls to sacrifice and service 
 which you must often have heard?" 
 
 "You see I was a great thinker; I loved reading, 
 and saw things from so many sides that I could never 
 have committed myself to any specific course of con- 
 duct." 
 
 "Were you never troubled by the nightmare of idle- 
 ness, or by fears lest you should have played with these 
 various movements to the ruin of your soul?" 
 
 "I had a wonderful gift of balance which I always 
 preserved, and I was trained to consider nothing such 
 bad form as to let yourself go. I can't tell you, though, 
 how greatly I admired the explorers who opened up 
 new ground, which usually ended in a series of cuts de
 
 172 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 sac where they completely lost themselves, but I thor- 
 oughly enjoyed watching them make the attempt." 
 
 "And your heart? Did you really love, really feel, 
 really give, really weep, really pray, really risk, really 
 work, really anything?" 
 
 "I was perfectly calm, and careful to observe the con- 
 venances of society. Besides, I made it a rule to allow 
 nothing to interfere with my night's repose." 
 
 "Did it come home to you that the Church was uni- 
 versal, that the women in the shops were your sisters, 
 that the people at the theatres were immortal, and that 
 you owed a debt to them all which remained unpaid?" 
 
 "I hardly know what you mean, for I was never in 
 debt in my life, and was particular about my investments 
 to the last penny." 
 
 "Were you frightened about dying? Did you won- 
 der what would happen afterwards, and whether, in some 
 strange way, your present was making your future?" 
 
 "I thought it would be horrid to die and hoped I 
 might go off in my sleep, but was not over-anxious so 
 long as I could send for the clergy in time, though I 
 hated pain and am thankful to say I hardly ever had 
 even headaches." 
 
 The Judge was almost despondent, but here he seemed 
 to touch the highest point of chivalry and, in his sum- 
 ming up, by showing exceptional dignity, transferred 
 it to one ignorant of its first elements. He was pain- 
 fully conscious that the Parasite represented a prolific 
 type among the leisured women of any country, and he 
 groaned within himself as he approached a cemetery
 
 THE PARASITE 173 
 
 containing, from his point of view, numberless moribund, 
 if not already dead. He was thinking of a multitude 
 made up of those for whom there was no place either 
 in heaven or hell, and throughout his judgment he 
 showed divine forbearance, as dealing with the worst of 
 disasters. 
 
 ''Having listened to the outline of your days," he 
 said, in tones which even the accused could not mistake, 
 "I feel it my duty to set before you, in no measured 
 terms, the awfulness of sin, or of missing the mark. 
 I should find it easier to offer you consolation if you had 
 had the courage to commit literally the wrong in the 
 spirit of which you revelled. I wish you to understand 
 that, in contributing to the general ignorance, and still 
 more in treating the most serious issues with levity, 
 you have helped to sap the foundations of a faith whose 
 strength will always be regulated by the reality of its 
 adherents. 
 
 "It would be well to remember that the absence of 
 aim by which you have excused your vagaries obtains 
 for the majority of mortals, outside the class who earn 
 their daily bread, while it points to opportunities on 
 the part of the former towards the latter which, to your 
 great loss, you neglected. Your refusal to be implicated 
 in any of the vital questions affecting your sisters, in 
 which your money, at any rate, might have proved use- 
 ful, displays a selfishness more culpable, in my judgment, 
 than many of the scandals by which you professed to 
 be shocked, though the recounting of them was your 
 chief delight. If they who are striving to raise woman
 
 174 . THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 to a higher state of efficiency and to a realisation of her 
 vocation, as well as of her rights, find difficulty in their 
 task, you and those who follow in your train increase 
 it a thousandfold. It is through the example of such 
 as yourself that men, who adore the memory of their 
 mother, deal out an unwarranted contempt to her sex, 
 which the best of them invariably respect till it proves 
 unworthy. 
 
 "You appear to have forgotten that the Church, 
 which was so often on your lips, includes the girl behind 
 the counter, the tired sempstress, and the object from 
 whom you drew your skirts, but which happens to have 
 been made in the Divine image. The mental nipping, 
 which was your besetment, proves the ruin of thousands, 
 nor is the habit palliated by the greater guilt of those 
 who make their livelihood on false pretences. The role 
 of woman, if it is to be an ideal one, must be lived up 
 to, and involves, equally with that of man, the dignity 
 of work, in whatever department. Some day it will 
 strike you that the sex question is not enough to occupy 
 the soul, let alone the thoughts, of one whose eyes have 
 been opened to the world's pain, and to complicated 
 problems which only a woman's wit and consummate 
 patience can solve. The hurt which you have effected 
 is that you have treated tragedies as trifles, but, merci- 
 fully, it is a phase which will pass. When you have 
 been sufficiently tried in the fire, and when it shall have 
 done its work in cleansing the filth of your spiritual 
 things, you shall approach those qualities and ideals 
 which have never failed to excite your admiration.
 
 THE PARASITE 175 
 
 "Your destiny must for the future depend on your 
 own concurrence, but, at least, your environment shall 
 be such as to prevent your lapsing by reason of its 
 ease. With all the sorrow I feel at the chances which 
 are gone by, I can do little or nothing for you. When 
 instead of talking about religion without acting you 
 act it without talking, your pious custom shall stand 
 you in good stead, and you shall grasp the meaning of 
 those visions which were your snare. Later, you shall 
 arrive at the solution of love itself, which is more than 
 dalliance, but which carries with it the cross you so 
 lightly wear. From now you need have no fears. Your 
 true life is just beginning, and, though it may mean 
 much chastisement ere you come to its perfecting, you 
 shall some day discover for yourself Him Who, in spite 
 of all appearances to the contrary, you care for best of 
 all. You shall then find your affinity."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MEPHISTO 
 
 THIS prisoner was the reverse of attractive. No 
 one could deny that he was well-looking, but his 
 whole bearing was for some reason repellent. 
 He overdid the art of pleasing, strongly reminding one 
 of the type which is "ready to supply the next article." 
 Though his name was on many lips, the sight of an 
 ordinary and vulgar man was disappointing. Yet this 
 was a person who had acquired celebrity as a middle- 
 class Don Juan and whose conquests were a matter of 
 common talk. He was evidently outside the meaning 
 of the Court and a stranger to judgment in any shape. 
 He was too bovine for the barest suspicion of sorrow, and, 
 having run his business with none to say him nay, he 
 took his seat with an assurance beyond belief. His 
 unconsciousness of wrong was a trait which it was 
 difficult to grasp, and the conviction came that God's 
 harshest treatment of a man is to let him alone. With 
 a dramatic gesture suggestive of the profession itself, 
 the accused, who symbolised a tyrannous power in the 
 world of entertainment, thus addressed the Judge: 
 
 "It is hard to understand to what I owe the honour 
 of this interview, and, had I not felt mesmerised into 
 
 176
 
 MEPHISTO 177 
 
 coming, I should have avoided such a dreary spectacle. 
 The fact is that all my habits have tended towards 
 gaiety, until I can stand nothing without a swing, or 
 to the music of which you are not forced to trip it as 
 you go. Upon my word, I cannot see what all this 
 points to, since I am a perfectly harmless individual who 
 has given any number of people a good time. I have 
 supplied an easy means of oblivion, have done my best 
 to destroy the pangs of conscience, and have expelled 
 the smallest fear of future punishment. I look upon 
 it as altogether to the good to have banished hell, and 
 supplied to the theatre a lighter side much needed in 
 the country where I lived. 
 
 "I can hardly say that acting, in the serious sense of 
 the word, came in at all; what I aimed at was laughter, 
 without any awkward restrictions of decency or manners. 
 They tell me, though I have ceased to notice it, that what 
 mainly filled the house and my own purse was a combi- 
 nation of lust and vitality so entrancing that the time 
 passed before you knew where you were, without any 
 tax on your intellect. The after consequences were not 
 my affair, but the drug which I provided effectually 
 dulled remorse; there was a sort of 'let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we die,' about it which acted as an anodyne 
 and made the same people come again and again, as 
 though they could never have enough. It was all in the 
 way of pleasure, and I flatter myself that I raised the art 
 of turning heads with no brains in them to a new science. 
 I found myself patronised not only by the middle classes, 
 but by the highest in the land, so far as names go, until
 
 178 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 I became the resort of any who wanted to forget their 
 worries to tunes and dances unsurpassed in their seduc- 
 tiveness. The truth is I drew the line nowhere, save of 
 course at the limitation of the censor, and even that I 
 learned to evade by skilled innuendo. 
 
 "As to the performers, I had no difficulty in securing 
 them, seeing that my requirements were chiefly con- 
 fined to beauty of form, of which there was a large supply 
 in the market. I confess it never dawned on me that 
 they had souls, or that they might look back with regret 
 to having sacrificed their youth, and, in many instances, 
 their innocence, to the success of my schemes. However, 
 the business part of my programme was so strong that 
 my pupils soon became adepts at decoying their own 
 prey, more by promises than by performance, until it was 
 secured beyond escape. Their engagement was pre- 
 ceded by private interviews with myself which I would 
 prefer not to describe too accurately, but, at any rate, 
 they knew fairly well the character of their contract, and 
 the majority subscribed willingly to the conditions of 
 their employment. Now and again those who looked 
 upon the drama as of national importance appeared to 
 be vexed at my operations, but by degrees I became ac- 
 cepted, and even taken up by some of the leaders, lest 
 they should seem to be behind the growing trend of pub- 
 lic opinion in a downward direction. 
 
 "I doubt whether I have any excuse to offer, nor do I 
 feel the need of one. Having a keen eye to business, 
 which was my main characteristic, I saw that there 
 was a large fortune in the delights of the flesh, if properly
 
 MEPHISTO 179 
 
 graduated, as also in playing down to the dislike of 
 study and hatred of thought which were features of my 
 age. Anyway I am told that I have countless friends 
 and not a single enemy, which leaves me in an excellent 
 humour, and hopeful that you will treat this little matter 
 without prejudice, and as a man of the world." 
 
 The advocate was fairly nonplussed, and seemed likely 
 to retire from the case. In fact he hardly knew the ac- 
 cused, who had generally given him the slip, being in- 
 clined to shirk the least approach to self-examination. 
 Even here were present that gleam of kindness and at- 
 tempt to make the best of things which often ennoble 
 the counsel for the defence in any Court. He also 
 recognised that though the prisoner had soiled, by 
 diverting to his own purposes, the whole area of comedy, 
 love-making, music, and the dance, there was no intrinsic 
 harm in any of these things. Being himself pure, they 
 took on for him his own guilelessness, nor did he need 
 any one to tell him that youth was youth, that the laws 
 of attraction might and ought to be without sin, and 
 that children dance to an organ as by nature born. It 
 was the defilement of these instincts that wounded him, 
 and, as he contemplated this perverter of possible good, 
 he wondered how it was that such forces had been 
 yielded up with scarcely a struggle on the part of true 
 lovers of humanity. 
 
 "I fear," he said, "that the arguments which I have 
 to put before your Lordship are too vague to help the 
 prisoner's case, but I would point out that the particular 
 course he adopted was fostered, if not brought about, by
 
 i8o THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 the deadly dulness which prevailed where he resided. 
 Goodness wore an aspect which, to say the least, was 
 trying, and afforded him no small opportunity. Aware 
 as I am of the strong point which you make of personal 
 responsibility, I cannot forbear the suggestion that in 
 countries where the climate runs to gloom nations are 
 more easily tempted to license than where the sky is blue 
 and there is a sparkle in the air. It is possible, my Lord, 
 for virtue to become a weight; and, when the intelligence 
 is of a poor quality, combined with the melancholy 
 which treads hard on vacuousness of mind, no wonder if, 
 with a little arrangement, pockets are emptied in order 
 to satisfy the lower inclinations. 
 
 "Even I, who am conducting this case, am unable to 
 trace any good in the prisoner's occupation, except that 
 it may have served for a harmless distraction to a large 
 and eminently respectable class who possessed neither wit 
 nor imagination enough to be much affected either way. 
 I would go so far as to say that many of this type were 
 even benefited, since without similar relief they would 
 have become morose and unbearable in their uninterest- 
 ing homes. I trust, then, that your Lordship will be 
 lenient to the accused, at least as regards that portion of 
 the house which was condemned to a drab and colourless 
 existence. That my client is bound to undergo some 
 drastic treatment I cannot disguise from myself, but I 
 hope the day may arrive when he will have acquired a 
 truer knowledge of that bonhomie for which there is a 
 place in the scheme of salvation." 
 
 The Judge was plainly troubled, and there was a dis-
 
 MEPHISTO 181 
 
 tance between himself and the accused which happily 
 was not the rule. The story was woefully sordid, yet, 
 withal, explicable to one who understood the weight of 
 life and the heaviness with which it pressed upon the 
 children of men. His mind was travelling beyond the 
 prisoner, who failed to interest him compared with the 
 crowds whom that prisoner had tempted, and the causes 
 which rendered them so susceptible to his lures. His 
 sympathy called up a picture of the ignorant rich, and 
 from his heart he pitied the young men whose prime 
 necessity was to be amused. He felt the tragedy of their 
 stupidity and bewailed the snares hidden for them under 
 exotics and every enticement. 
 
 As he measured the extent of the mischief, there 
 passed before him a vision of future mothers ruined by 
 suggestion and rendered unable to accomplish their 
 self-development. It appeared to him more pernicious 
 than actual vice, involving as it did less dread, and prom- 
 ising a slumber from which the sleeper woke to find 
 his or her true dignity for ever done away. He saw the 
 ruin of the most hopeful, and the result of hybrid unions 
 which transmitted the poison to succeeding generations. 
 On that kindest of faces came a look of compassion for 
 the world, but with regard to the accused himself, his 
 pity made him the more pitiless. The following conver- 
 sation passed between him and the prisoner: 
 
 "I wish to know if you thought of these traps which 
 you laid for your audience as affecting your own sister 
 or daughter, or if the memory of your mother once 
 crossed your mind? "
 
 182 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "I have always regarded women as more or less fair 
 game and, with the exception of my mother, looked on 
 them as inferior to man and put into the world for his 
 passing satisfaction." 
 
 "Did you not feel any misgivings as to your personal 
 treatment of your performers, being aware of the straits 
 to which they were reduced, when you promised them 
 extravagant gains at the expense of their honour?" 
 
 "I soon lost any previous pity, though where my fan- 
 cies were touched I kept them to myself, until I had no 
 further use for them; but I paid them well, and their own 
 people did not seem to mind." 
 
 "Were you not inclined to shed a tear over the young 
 men whose mothers' hearts you broke and whose sisters 
 you shamed, knowing, as you must have known, that you 
 were to them as the spider to the fly, and that, if you got 
 them into your web, there was little or no chance for 
 them?" 
 
 "I can own to nothing but pleasure in the transaction, 
 as it brought me into a society which flattered my ambi- 
 tion. Though I had a leaning for the gilded youth, there 
 was a radical side to my nature which rather enjoyed 
 than otherwise bringing them to my own level; besides, 
 while the fascination lasted, it was roses, roses all the 
 way." 
 
 "Did it not hurt you that you were injuring the drama 
 itself , and, under a name with fine traditions, were placing 
 before the public productions instinct with picturesque 
 sin?" 
 
 " I knew this and I hated it, but I did it all the same."
 
 MEPHISTO 183 
 
 "Did you consider the reach of your influence, the 
 host of imitators, the popularity of your dances, and the 
 deadly taint which through you affected the entire realm 
 of amusement? " 
 
 " I took every care as to my royalties, so that I could 
 not regret a tendency which, the more it increased, the 
 more it strengthened the desire to patronise my show." 
 
 "Were you never appealed to by the illness of the 
 girls whom you employed, and whom you turned off 
 at a moment's notice when, physically, they ceased to 
 draw?" 
 
 "If I had not done so, I should soon have been ruined 
 by paying attention to sentimental fancies." 
 
 "Surely it cannot be a fact that in several instances 
 girls were offered engagements on the understanding 
 that they must first forego their virtue, or you had no 
 opening for them?" 
 
 "I fancy this sort of thing did take place sometimes, 
 but it was all. in the commission, as we say; of course 
 they had the right to decline if they preferred poverty, 
 while it would doubtless have happened to them in some 
 other way, and less to their advantage." 
 
 "You cannot mean to tell me that you felt no qualms 
 when you held before them as a bait marriages with a 
 class altogether removed from their own, to be com- 
 passed by stealth, without the knowledge of the man's 
 parents, and to the inevitable unhappiness of the young 
 people concerned? " 
 
 "This was one of my chief allurements and, when the 
 idea came to me, I felt that I had hit on no end of a good
 
 184 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 thing, though as to what followed, it was a matter oi 
 complete indifference." 
 
 "Is it the case that more than once you almost re- 
 pented and wished you had turned your attention to the 
 bona fide money market, instead of to such a shameless 
 traffic?" 
 
 "I frequently thought I would turn it up, though I 
 have never acknowledged it till now, and once, when the 
 doctors warned me, I remember a long procession of 
 faces which haunted me for days." 
 
 "Are you beginning to realise what it all meant, and is 
 there no vestige of sorrow in your heart, as you commence 
 to see that it is possible to commit murder without using 
 a weapon?" 
 
 "For mercy's sake, come to your sentence, and let me 
 go! Yes, I begin to see it more clearly, and the same 
 procession of faces, much longer now than then, is com- 
 ing before me; but at the time, so help me God, I never 
 thought it out. If I had met some one like yourself, I 
 believe I should have chucked it and turned out a better 
 man." 
 
 The sternness on the Judge's countenance relaxed for 
 an instant, and the skill of a man who, without ceasing 
 to be cold, put such pathos into his tone that this vul- 
 garian nearly wept, excelled any eloquence. He knew 
 the value of words, however, and, swinging round to 
 severity out of very love, elected to help him by the re- 
 moteness which he assumed. 
 
 "Your proceedings," he said, "were too considered 
 to call for much pity. I fully understand your advo-
 
 MEPHISTO 185 
 
 cate's reference to the tedium and dulness of the daily 
 round, but I fail to see how this qualifies your conduct. 
 I am aware that you have often dispelled clouds and 
 lifted burdens, but the impression you give me is that 
 of a man who looked on the ruin of an immortal soul 
 as a trifle compared to enriching his wretched self and 
 to revelling in the exploitation of the senses. It is 
 evident that offences must come, but it is a sorry busi- 
 ness for him through whom they come, nor is there any 
 doubt that through you they have been seriously mul- 
 tiplied. 
 
 "It is neither my pleasure nor my duty to dwell 
 longer on a point to which you are at present nearly 
 insensible, though I am grateful for the gleam of good- 
 ness which you have just shown. Your chief penalty 
 consists, as it always must, in what you have become, nor 
 can even this touch its maximum till you recognise what 
 you might have been. I am acquainted with your 
 charities, your spasmodic generosity, and your sentimen- 
 tal tears, but these things count little with me, amount- 
 ing as they did to no more than emotionalism and vanity. 
 
 "However distasteful the lesson, you must learn the 
 horror of the spirit of murder without the courage or 
 the excuses often accompanying the act. You will 
 have to endure a hideous remorse before your heart 
 lives, when you shall begin to guess at the tragedy of your 
 pleasant days. Your discipline shall be to undergo a long 
 period in the wilderness, where you shall be compelled 
 to face yourself and where there shall be no glitter, no 
 seductions, no display. Alone, under the stars, you
 
 i86 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 shall be driven to contemplate your true home, from 
 which you have not only wandered, but the entrance 
 of which you have barred to thousands. You shall 
 wake to a sadness of which no one can relieve you, as 
 you dwell on the young lives which you destroyed at an 
 age when they should have been defended by every 
 good influence. You shall drink the cup of bitterness to 
 the dregs, as your mind travels over the gins which 
 you set to catch the birds before you plucked them for 
 your profit. Worst of all, you shall realise, in the silence 
 of your solitude, the deadly wrong of cheapening sin, 
 and of investing carnality with a halo which is the tri- 
 umph of a Mephistopheles. Though the knife must 
 probe to the roots of the evil, I would bid you hope, 
 seeing that one day your wilderness shall blossom like a 
 rose. 
 
 "Later, you shall return as an apostle of your new- 
 born idealism and shall witness a wantonness which 
 obtains on a larger scale, and in the invention of which 
 you once gloried. You shall reach a state of yearning 
 to retrieve through which you will be redeemed, in 
 proportion as you daringly assert that the body has a 
 sanctity of its own, that home is a divine institution, 
 and that innocence claims our protection. Such a sen- 
 tence is the heaviest I can pronounce, but in after days 
 you will bless me for it, and, when your lesson is learned, 
 you shall arrive at a gaiety which is all good. 
 
 "Your powers of arranging for sane frolic shall not 
 be lost. Your gifts of management, which were unique, 
 shall still have a sphere. This influence of yours, which
 
 MEPHISTO 187 
 
 proved such a bane, shall be consecrated to other ends, 
 and you shall not lose your power through your new 
 preference for purity. Hereafter you shall detest the 
 thought of supplying danger, but without forfeiting 
 the swing and go that are much needed in the realm of 
 good. Your paternity shall reassert itself, and, to quote 
 from your own Psalms, your aim shall be that the daugh- 
 ters of the city become polished corners of the Temple. 
 Not for an instant would I diminish the dash or damp 
 the joy which you know so well how to impart, but the 
 lesson the wilderness shall have taught you is that God 
 and gladness must go hand in hand, if the last is not to 
 die."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE DRUNKARD 
 
 THE Drunkard shuffled into Court, as he shuffled 
 everywhere, with a stupid leer telling of an addled 
 brain and of finer feelings lost long ago. His 
 hectic flush betokened a shame and a sensitiveness 
 which spoke of better days. He had evidently once 
 been careful of his appearance, and the habits of a gen- 
 tleman were discernible, spite of the slackness and seedi- 
 ness of his whole bearing. No satire was likely to be 
 called forth by this wreck of a former man who was his 
 own enemy, and who might be described as a gradual 
 suicide. He hated sitting down; the word rest was un- 
 known to him; his hands, on which were no marks of 
 work, clutched at his collar, smoothed his hair, stroked 
 his cheeks, sought his pockets, and then began it all 
 over again. 
 
 A nameless sorrow enveloped him, arousing rage in 
 an onlooker against the purveyors of what had ruined 
 millions like him, whilst they had been enriched and 
 even ennobled thereby. The cause of the curse lay 
 with the poor drunkard himself, it being clear that, if 
 his own liability had been nil, he would not have been 
 cited for judgment. When he looked up into the Judge's 
 
 188
 
 THE DRUNKARD 189 
 
 face a new peace possessed his soul, and the swiftness of 
 the change, unless witnessed, would have been incredible. 
 Those hands of his ceased trembling, and he became 
 restful under a glance which disregarded his externals. 
 All hurt to his pride had gone, since he knew that he 
 would be treated for what he was and not for what he 
 seemed to be. To be honoured could alone satisfy his 
 thirst for respect, much as the salute of a sentry might 
 save from despair an officer who had been cashiered. 
 Instinct suggested that the Drunkard, having been 
 ruined by his emotions, could best be cured on the same 
 plane, and a contest was obviously impending between 
 natural loathing and supernatural love. 
 
 It was hardly to be believed that a human being 
 could have come to this extremity, unless he had long 
 ago bartered away the birthright of free will. A large 
 element of the child still remained in the accused, and, 
 as throughout his career he had been conspicuous for 
 weakness, so now he was equally susceptible to the 
 influence of goodness, which comforted him not a little. 
 Seldom was the Judge so wonderful. He had not yet 
 opened his lips, but one began to understand how there 
 are presences which can expel demons without a word. 
 If silence is golden at certain moments, only the very 
 wise know when to refrain; but during this interval 
 a communion was established between the Judge and 
 the sufferer unintelligible save to those who have loved 
 enough to make a similar effort. The man could tell 
 his story now; and, though there was no alteration in his 
 clothes, so great a one was there in his face, that only
 
 ico THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 his mother would have known him. Such a trans- 
 formation may be deemed beyond belief, but it is the 
 one feature in the restoration of the inebriate which 
 prevents hopelessness and expresses the paradox of two 
 people merged in one, till separated anew by sympathy 
 into their constituent parts. 
 
 "I have come," he said, "not merely to confess, but. 
 for the first time in my life, to accuse myself. I have 
 always sworn that I never drank to excess, that every 
 one else lied, and that, from start to finish, I was grossly 
 misunderstood. Simply to be with you has somehow 
 made me happy, and, being happy, it becomes easier 
 to own up. How I could have made such a hash of 
 my life, reducing myself to a state worse than that of an 
 animal, I fail to understand. When I came here I had 
 meant to pitch the same old yarn, and to accuse every- 
 body on God's earth except myself. At last I see my 
 damnable selfishness, but I pray that the name on which 
 I brought disgrace may never come to light. 
 
 "The satire of it is that I started well, was even bril- 
 liant, and more than once had the world, so to speak, 
 at my feet. What caused others long application came 
 to me by inspiration, and, unfortunately, I gained hon- 
 ours by scarcely more than guesswork. The same ease 
 dogged my footsteps in the years that followed, and I 
 hardly noticed that this cleverness was landing me in a 
 mire which I should then have regarded as outside the 
 range of probability. Love of good fellowship, the ar- 
 tistic temperament, and impatience of restraint drove me 
 to drink as a duck takes to water, more especially as I
 
 THE DRUNKARD 191 
 
 was master of the revels, loved entertaining, and shone 
 beyond the rest when the wine flowed. Not that I 
 neglected my work, I was a demon at that, too, but I 
 did not recognise that both work and wine spelt for me 
 oblivion of myself and popularity among my inferiors. 
 The only person who saw this was my mother, for my 
 pals and a crowd of hangers-on liked what it meant for 
 them too well to drop a hint for my benefit. My mother 
 believed that a good woman would save me, but again 
 this pernicious facility proved my bane, since I won her 
 without any effort or any test of sacrifice. She naturally 
 thought she would cure me, and for a time the bliss of 
 our content promised a permanent remedy. I worked 
 harder than ever, being fired by a new ambition, until 
 I attained a place in regard to which I would prefer to 
 be silent. 
 
 "But, whether it was the wife, or whether it was the 
 place, there was more getting than giving in both. Soon 
 enough I came up against the old trouble, which meant 
 that everything on earth had for me a brick wall only 
 to be scaled by getting drunk. By degrees recklessness 
 set in. The wife whom I adored, or, rather, idolised as 
 a reflection of myself, palled on me. Even the children 
 became a nuisance, for I lost interest in anything save 
 that thrill of being outside my body which was enchain- 
 ing me more tightly every day. I became less particular 
 not only as to myself but as to the liquor, provided it 
 was wet and provided it was strong. Unfortunately, 
 I had money without limit, which made the descent 
 more rapid, until ruin stared me in the face. With my
 
 i 9 2 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 self-respect my honour went; I developed into a liar of 
 the worst description, cute as they are made, and capable 
 of any subterfuge in order to indulge in my darling sin. 
 Countless hands were held out to save me, but I would 
 have none of it. Now that it is too late I know that, 
 had I meant business, or acted loyally by the advice I 
 received, I could have recovered and been as good a man 
 as ever. 
 
 "My mother's love was angelic, but my wife left me, 
 nor do I blame her when I think of the children. I 
 doubt if she would have deserted one of them in a similar 
 plight. Then I grew not to care, and even I find it 
 beneath me to reveal the vileness of the last few years. 
 To the end I continued to dream of goodness, and lazily 
 made resolves which I had no intention of carrying out. 
 My constitution refused to be broken, and my strength 
 increased my weakness. Could I have had a long ill- 
 ness, there might have been a pause, but, getting over 
 my bouts with no serious damage to my health, I fled 
 once more from the voice of conscience to taste what 
 was both my delight and my destruction. 
 
 "Language fails me to describe the ceaseless worry I 
 caused, the tyranny I exercised, the people I wore out, 
 and the gloom I created by my false gaiety. I stand 
 here not so much with a desire to become sober, as with 
 a passion for punishment which is the only antidote 
 strong enough for my disease, affording as it does the 
 pleasure of pain, mercifully a closed book to nearly all 
 save the drunkard." 
 
 The advocate was great on this occasion, and without
 
 THE DRUNKARD 193 
 
 hesitation he began his speech, his difficulty being to 
 compress it. "I rejoice, my Lord," he said, "to plead 
 not only for the man but for my friend. I have never 
 ceased to love him, nor he me, and at the risk of its 
 sounding like a fairy story, I am bold to describe him as 
 a poet imprisoned within a beast, with which he became 
 blended, but to which he by no means belonged. He 
 was by nature one of the sweetest, gentlest characters I 
 have ever known. As a child, his chief delight was in 
 prayer and in vague wonder as to the infinitude of God 
 and the mystery of the Universe. When a small boy 
 he was always doing kind things, and I can see him now 
 as he put his arms round the dogs and kissed them, 
 while his favourite cob seemed to him to have a soul. 
 There was no sign of coming doom in this universal fa- 
 vourite as after dinner his father treated him to cham- 
 pagne, showed him off to his guests, and prophesied of 
 his future. 
 
 "He has told his story almost too well, but your 
 Lordship needs no warning from me that these intervals 
 of ingenuousness are often a prelude to still greater 
 deception. As for his final ruin, he was heavily handi- 
 capped by his early victories, and he doubtless found it 
 true that, when to drink is added wealth, it needs a 
 mighty miracle to enter the Kingdom. His life afforded 
 few restraints and he would have had to make them for 
 himself, which is just what he was unable to do. The 
 error of supposing that the end of existence was to be 
 happy, instead of to make happy, was the initial cause 
 of his collapse. That a man should kill the thing he
 
 i 9 4 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 loves, torture his special treasure, crucify the object 
 of his worship, and hold up to derision the country to 
 which he longs to add fresh laurels by his achievements, 
 astounds his advocate and makes him dumb. 
 
 "When I picture this potential leader of men slink- 
 ing into the lowest haunts, trading on his best friends, 
 raising their hopes only to dash them to the ground, and 
 ending in a mass of egoism which was the pest of those 
 who most pitied him, I ask your mercy not alone for 
 the drunkard, but for those who found it possible to 
 supply the instruments of his martyrdom. I should 
 have been glad to think that of these the accused has 
 not said one word, if his leniency had not been due to 
 the fact that, even now, he does not hate what landed 
 him in Hades. His hospitality knew no bounds, though 
 it was spoilt by the vanity that accompanied it, but he 
 never turned his back on a convict, which should claim 
 your consideration now that he himself is one. I have 
 nothing more to add, and prefer to leave the solution of 
 this tragedy to your Lordship, having marked the dan- 
 ger of human inclinings where, in face of every cause 
 for revulsion, the devil takes on some irresistible charm." 
 
 The face of the Judge indicated a grief equal to that 
 of the prisoner. Throughout the confession and the 
 speech which followed he was intensely moved by the 
 thought of the snare to which many of the brightest 
 and brainiest were subject. He was bewailing in secret 
 these flowers of promise that had opened with excep- 
 tional glory, but had faded long ere they arrived at 
 maturity. With a compassion known in perfection only
 
 THE DRUNKARD 195 
 
 by a man of sorrows, he cordially pitied those of the race 
 who were capable of worse than killing their brothers for 
 coin of the realm. It was no excuse in his sight that 
 they might bring forward the plea of fair dealing, or 
 argue that others would have done it if they had not, or, 
 deadliest of all, that their intention was to use a pro- 
 portion of their receipts for patriotic (!) ends. Brushing 
 this aside, as he gazed on the bankrupt before him, tears 
 flowed down his cheeks. It was so unnecessary, so 
 disappointing, so wasteful, so wicked, though he did not 
 delude himself that alcohol was the solitary channel of 
 this traffic in man's proneness to err. Nevertheless the 
 hardheartedness of the transaction shocked him, and the 
 crime of thus mutilating for money the Divine image 
 in those who could not resist, staggered him more than 
 the tale of woe to which he had just listened. When 
 this dastardly deed became incorporated with good and 
 when those implicated, whether directly or indirectly, 
 went so far as to pray for the victims of their cupidity, 
 the Judge shuddered at the awakening which must come 
 to any capable of such self-delusion. He turned to this 
 one with surprising gentleness and paid him extra hon- 
 our to cover the loss of his own. 
 
 "Tell me," he said "how it was that in your youth 
 you became familiar with the cause of your future down- 
 fall." 
 
 "My father was a hospitable man and prided himself 
 on the best of cellars." 
 
 "Was your trouble hereditary?" 
 
 "I did not dare to let myself think so, though I had
 
 196 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 heard of wild enough stories in the family, but we re- 
 garded them as rather heroic, and not a word was said 
 to make us feel ashamed." 
 
 "And your mother's attitude?" 
 
 "My mother was a saint." 
 
 "Did you feel no remorse, while you were still young, 
 when you became aware that this was growing on you?" 
 
 "Not a bit, which puzzles me. At the time my com- 
 panions called it pluck, said I was a sportsman, egged 
 me on, but took care not to follow so far." 
 
 "Did you love your work?" 
 
 "Passionately, but it was exhausting, until to do the 
 best I had to resort to stimulants in increasing quanti- 
 ties." 
 
 "With what result?" 
 
 "That I felt like a demi-god and that there was noth- 
 ing I could not perform if put to it." 
 
 "Your brain?" 
 
 "I had visions of every kind of delight, fairies visited 
 me, but live women became insipid, and nothing satisfied 
 me short of communing with the unreal." 
 
 "Did you escape tedium and was monotony banished? " 
 
 "Yes, and this was best of all, for I lived in a world 
 of fantasy, above ordinary concerns, though at intervals 
 I came down with a run and found myself common 
 clay." 
 
 "How do you explain that, knowing what you were 
 doing, you continued to do it?" 
 
 "I can't, but I did both." 
 
 "What of your manliness?"
 
 THE DRUNKARD 197 
 
 "I never boasted of it more than when it was in dan- 
 ger." 
 
 "What of your affections?" 
 
 "I specially wept about them when I was as hard as 
 a stone." 
 
 "What about truth?" 
 
 "I swore by all the gods when I was planning the 
 worst treachery." 
 
 "Your fame, what of that?" 
 
 " I disregarded it compared to the glories I could con- 
 jure up by a dram." 
 
 "And your country, of which at one time you were 
 such an ornament?" 
 
 "Never was I so patriotic as in my cups, and no one 
 could wave a flag better than I when I tarnished it most." 
 
 "Did you have many reactions?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and many of them were quite long ones." 
 
 "Could you work between whiles?" 
 
 "Not well, and each time I had less zest and grew 
 more quickly tired." 
 
 "Did money play a part in the business?" 
 
 "Yes, but not for myself. I cared for it only that 
 I might add to the national prestige, though God knows 
 how such a combination could be effected." 
 
 "Did you get it honestly?" 
 
 "At first, yes; later, no. The more callous I became, 
 and the less scrupulous, the more I won, till everything 
 I touched turned to gold, while all the time I was privately 
 a villain." 
 
 "How could you manage this without detection?"
 
 198 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "A drunkard can manage anything till the final catas- 
 trophe." 
 
 "How did this come?" 
 
 "I would rather not say. I just disappeared." 
 
 "Is your name cursed? " 
 
 "On the contrary, I am quoted as a benefactor by the 
 public, though a few, here and there, are in the secret." 
 
 "And your inner being? " 
 
 "Must I say?" 
 
 "Every word spoken here is voluntary." 
 
 "Well, then, my true being was entirely another one, 
 and throughout the piece I was longing, longing, longing 
 for the best, and admired it, too. If at any moment I 
 had been wakened up and asked my dearest wish, it 
 would have been to see God. When alone, I devoured 
 every book bearing on heroism and self-sacrifice, and 
 when I was not lost in drink, I would lose myself in 
 stories of the saints. In my darkest times I used to 
 kiss my crucifix and talk to the hanging Figure. Again 
 and again I pledged myself, bar rot, to walk in His 
 footsteps if only I could do so in some forcible fashion; 
 so I prayed and I drank, and I drank and I prayed, 
 till I became a horrid jumble, though retaining a method 
 in my madness and keeping an eye to the main chance." 
 
 "What of the company you kept and the dens of 
 iniquity you visited?" 
 
 "No one knew me there." 
 
 "Did you pity the poor?" 
 
 "Yes, by heaven! I did, for I knew their trials and, 
 whatever I may have to bear, I ask you, whose kindness
 
 THE DRUNKARD 199 
 
 has disarmed me, to show them still more, seeing that 
 it is only natural so many of them should go under." 
 
 "And if you returned, what would you do?" 
 
 "I know myself too well to think I should do other- 
 wise, but at the moment I don't wish to go back, and, 
 if, in some way beyond my power to divine, you can 
 make me only decent and help me to paint out the past, 
 I will undergo my bit and bless you." 
 
 The conversation had been painful to both speakers 
 alike and, as the Judge prepared to give his decision, 
 the fact that a good man may be made sin, yet know- 
 ing it not, rendered Gethsemane intelligible. "I have 
 listened to your words with deep concern, but I am well 
 aware that you cannot change your own spots and that 
 the picture you have drawn has been replete with your- 
 self. That you have suffered as few mortals are called 
 on to do I readily admit, but I would gravely remind you 
 of the cruelty you have shown, which, in the case of the 
 drunkard, as of the harlot, is allowed to pass far too 
 easily. To an extent I admire your absence of complain- 
 ing, but I would impress on you that, outside your 
 physical weakness which has become a disease, vanity 
 coupled with sensation was the true cause of your dis- 
 aster. From a child you were spoilt, which is the root 
 of the matter. That you could have been anything 
 you liked you need no telling, and your religious zeal, 
 which amounted to a frenzy, was a spurious scaling of 
 the stars. 
 
 "Get it ingrained into your mind that drink, even 
 with you, was comparatively incidental, and that at the
 
 200 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 back of it was this playing to the gallery which found 
 its expression in your magnificent schemes, your gran- 
 diloquent talk, and later in the tap-room ! This was the 
 impetus which was driving you to the streets, making 
 you an alien to your own, and causing you to affect the 
 lowest company, provided you could king it among 
 minnows. Self was your master, and liquor was the 
 whip with which it lashed you, till you cringed before 
 the tyrant and obeyed his lightest behests. This was 
 what made people shun your presence and almost pray 
 for your death. But you continued, until you ended by 
 not caring a jot if you could indulge in the zest of domin- 
 ion for ten minutes. 
 
 "No metaphor can better account for your present 
 condition than that of one who, in the early stages, was 
 fascinated by flying so long as the aerodrome was filled 
 with crowds. The sensation of the flight was at first 
 secondary to the plaudits of the throng, and unconscious 
 how enslaved he was becoming, he woke to find that 
 no day counted unless he went up. So strong became 
 its hold, that he was eternally whirled through space, 
 nor could he descend for a rest but he must mount again 
 and be driven through the clouds. The only comfort 
 remaining was that he never wholly lost the clapping 
 hands of those who tempted him to further trials, but 
 jeered him when he fell. They even dared him to greater 
 rashness, offering him rewards in order to share the 
 thrill as they held their breath, and waited for the thud 
 upon the ground. You have lived at the top of your 
 bent, and your penalty must be equivalent. You must
 
 THE DRUNKARD 201 
 
 acquire the counter secret of sobriety and self-extinction; 
 in a word, you must give up flying and you must walk 
 for many a long day. 
 
 "The penance which I inflict on you is that you shall 
 count for nothing and, when you open your mouth, you 
 shall have no hearing. You shall know the anguish of 
 an impotent enthusiast, and you shall painfully learn 
 that the only way to better the world is to bleed for it. 
 You shall discover by daily contact with inebriates the 
 trial which you proved to those about you. You shall 
 have to listen to their endless talk concerning themselves, 
 and you shall be shut up with those who in their own 
 eyes are the hub of the universe. Sickened by the 
 sight of it in others, self shall gradually die, and it shall 
 be revealed to you what you have lost in your contempt 
 of woman's love, when, being unable to forget your 
 own image, caring was impossible. You shall discover, 
 through the ordinary medium of home life, the value of 
 decency and sobriety. You shall find it unnecessary to 
 indulge in talk about the infinite as you patiently strive 
 to bring happiness to your own circle. You shall cease 
 to pose when you have learned the meaning of altruism. 
 This will no longer consist of fits and starts, or brilliant 
 endeavours to do great things which shall be spoken of, 
 but in the trivial round, which will give you ample op- 
 portunity of denying yourself and finding God. You 
 will be chary of revelling in religion, which you can now 
 see counted for hardly more than another, and the most 
 vivid sensation. 
 
 "All in good time the degradation of the drunkard will
 
 202 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 disappear, and in his place shall be a modest, unassum- 
 ing man, who shall seldom speak, even of his repentance, 
 but shall be more than satisfied if he does his job. When 
 you have been long enough in your village, you shall 
 be used for the high purposes for which you were des- 
 tined by your gifts before you allowed them to become 
 bizarre. You shall find in the cross which you have to 
 bear a joy you never fancied in your wildest flights. 
 You shall live to bless your own experience, if by the 
 plain relation of it, to your confusion, you liberate a 
 single brother from the prison of which your knowledge 
 shall have furnished the key. When you save your 
 first soul, you shall be happy. No longer shall it be 
 necessary for you to deal in heroics and to rant about 
 heaven. You shall be there already."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MRS. GRUNDY 
 
 A COMBINATION of the most correct and poi- 
 sonous types made her entrance, without the 
 smallest perturbation at a situation which eluded 
 her. The first impression she produced was that she 
 could not hurt a fly, the second that she could strangle 
 a child without its affecting her precision or her smile, 
 arranged on a recognised pattern. The absence of the 
 emblems of justice surprised her, causing her to despise 
 the "person," as she would have called him, who sat be- 
 low the place where they ought to have been. Her dress, 
 though severe, was a la mode, her chief effort being to 
 offer no temptation to the other sex, an attempt in which 
 she was singularly successful. A comparison between 
 her and the Judge was full of interest, and no one but 
 would have preferred to fall into the hands of the latter, 
 rather than into those of the pitiless lady who had at 
 last come up to receive as good as she had meted out, 
 not so much to the guilty, as to the discovered. 
 
 There was an element of tragedy in this struggle be- 
 tween formality and frankness, but it escaped the female 
 Pharisee, whose self-possession was superb. Fortunately 
 for her, she did not suffer from nerves, and her anxiety 
 
 203
 
 204 . THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 was not as to her position, which she regarded as un- 
 assailable, but merely to do the right thing whatever 
 happened. Even she had perforce to be honest, and, 
 though confession was impossible to her, she commenced 
 in a hard and unfeeling voice to make a statement of 
 facts without prejudice, and without the faintest hint 
 that she could have been worthy of blame. 
 
 "I cannot imagine why I have been summoned to 
 this place, or, if so, why I have not been invited to sit 
 on the bench where a seat is reserved for me in causes 
 celebres next to the President, whom I often prompt 
 when he is in difficulty as to his decision. From my 
 infancy I have been brought up to keep the world in 
 order, to prevent the disaster of being natural, to crown 
 success with laurels, to tread the fallen under foot, and 
 to have no pity on deviations from virtue, save in the 
 case of the very great, or in phases of society where, 
 being good style, they become a cause for praise. On 
 matters of dress or of etiquette I am the ultimate court 
 of appeal, nor am I influenced by the outrageousness 
 of fashion if appearances are observed. What happens 
 behind closed doors is not my affair, but in polite circles, 
 so far as externals go, I reign supreme. I have no use 
 for the open moor, the blue sky, or the caravan, though 
 of late I have been studying how to invade even these 
 and spoil them by my presence. Whether I shall suc- 
 ceed I cannot say, but I expect that, all in good time, 
 the world will be under my sway, except the Arctic 
 regions, which are already so cold that they hardly 
 need my freezing touch.
 
 MRS. GRUNDY 205 
 
 "I have been a great traveller in my day, and have 
 found myself equally at home at Court and in the sub- 
 urbs, where I have often met with a warm reception, but 
 in the slums they have treated me with a grave lack of 
 courtesy and have even pelted me with ancient eggs and 
 other missiles, obliging me to beat a hasty retreat. The 
 East, the cradle of truth, is no favourite haunt of mine, 
 for I regard basking in the sun as incompatible with an 
 approved demeanour. I have always advocated mar- 
 riages on a fiscal basis, and have opened offices in most 
 large cities, where I have done a smart business; but in 
 the villages I was expelled by a dangerous woman called 
 Dame Nature, with whom I have nothing in common. 
 I wish to state that I am extremely religious, while be- 
 lieving in nothing, but there are few churches and chap- 
 els which I do not frequent, regulating my attendance 
 by the popularity of the preacher, the gorgeousness 
 of the vestments, or the spiciness of the teaching. 
 I am by no means in favour of domestic effusiveness, 
 though I was great on family prayers when they were 
 the vogue, but, at the present moment, I am doubtful 
 on the latter point, as they would seem to be on the 
 decline. 
 
 "The young for some reason rather dislike me and 
 even call me prim, but I can afford to be patient, as I feel 
 confident that, sooner or later, they will change their 
 tone towards me through the bribes which I keep in 
 store for them, but which they cannot appreciate in 
 their early years. I had a better chance in girls' schools, 
 but regret to say that these are now revolting, so that
 
 2 o6 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 it would seem prudent to make my escape before I am 
 turned out. On the whole, I am distinctly depressed, 
 owing to a new doctrine of joy which is setting in, and 
 that dreadful woman whom I mentioned is trespassing 
 on my preserves, which terrifies me. Still I am glad to 
 think that I have withered many smiles, spoilt many ro- 
 mances, brought about much despair, and broken on the 
 wheel many an apostle of liberty. 
 
 "I know how to keep my place; and, if I am to be 
 dreaded by ordinary people, I fawn before those in high 
 places, allowing them privileges and sensations which I 
 repudiate in the case of the common herd. I have im- 
 mense reverence for blue blood, though, having no chemi- 
 cal science, I cannot say precisely when the colour begins 
 to change. Public opinion is my only god, and I cannot 
 remember having said a prayer, yet I never omit to 
 kneel when occasion requires. I glory in having been 
 uniformly unkind, and one of my great annoyances was 
 an organ-grinder for whom the children dared to dance 
 and went so far as to be merry. On the other hand, I 
 affect minuets, stately music, and literature of the dullest 
 character, but when a questionable novel has been 
 boomed by being banned, I have later found in it 
 passages tending to edification. I cannot pretend to 
 regret my conduct, but, as there is no one present, these 
 proceedings seem to me to lack importance, and I shall be 
 glad when they are concluded, if only to give me a chance 
 of attending several functions where, without my pres- 
 ence, I fear that they may degenerate into errors of 
 taste, and even of happiness."
 
 MRS. GRUNDY 207 
 
 The advocate was not specially downcast, though his 
 relations with the prisoner had been out of the common. 
 He spoke as one who had been attached to her royal 
 person officially, so that anything approaching intimacy 
 had been undesired, and consequently impossible. His 
 manner was strictly legal, and he confined himself to deal- 
 ing technically with his brief rather than with the merits 
 or the reverse of the accused. 
 
 "I must emphasise the fact," he said, "that although 
 the prisoner has made an affidavit which is repulsive, 
 yet she has accomplished much good. I contend that 
 the lady to whom she has referred as 'a woman' requires 
 a corrective, and that, if she were not checked by the 
 incursions of my client, the world would fall into grave 
 trouble. Not that I think all would be lost if what is 
 called society were to go to pieces, but I would put it 
 to your Lordship that masses have been made moral 
 through fear of bad form, and that, during the process, 
 they have acquired habits of self-denial which have stood 
 them in good stead when assailed by their emotions. 
 I believe that many have lived to bless their term of 
 slavery to the accused, though, for the most part, her 
 devotees lack imagination and are mainly suited for 
 dressing shop- windows. This class, though large, may 
 be dismissed as unimportant, but it is only just to say 
 that they were as responsible for making the lady as 
 bees for creating their queen. When they had outgrown 
 her, they also treated her in much the same way as 
 obtains among those whimsical insects. Meanwhile, 
 human nature requires a moral policeman, and it has
 
 2o8 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 been held by more than one that law without love is 
 better than love without law. 
 
 "Had it not been for Mrs. Grundy, a great number of 
 people would have gone straight to perdition, but whether 
 that would have been worse, or whether life in Hades is 
 preferable to inanition elsewhere, is an open question. 
 Though the prisoner shows signs of bad health, she has 
 by no means arrived at her end, but has, I am told, re- 
 markable powers of recuperation. I would argue that 
 she has not been guilty of bad feeling, for she has no 
 feelings at all, being but the expression of self-defence 
 on the part of the successful and the stupid. True, her 
 ethical judgments are inconsistent, but beyond a doubt 
 she has been an important asset in the maintenance of 
 home life, in the restraint of libertinage and, given suffi- 
 cient spectators, in producing courage. 
 
 "No one can deny that the accused has influenced 
 laws in the direction of good, and, though the enemy of 
 evolution, has retarded the wheels of anarchy. Bo- 
 hemia is her bete noire, but, save for her presence, Bo- 
 hemia would have gone perilously near to becoming a 
 cesspool and its inhabitants a rabble. There have been 
 times, my Lord, when I have been grateful to the 
 prisoner, and few have attained to chivalry or good 
 manners but have served their apprenticeship in her 
 school. I trust that I have tersely placed before you 
 the worthiest side of my case, and, when I contemplate 
 the dangers of self-abandonment and the misuse of 
 freedom by the majority, I venture to hope that your 
 judgment will not be averse to the prisoner. I would go
 
 MRS. GRUNDY 209 
 
 the length of saying that a capital sentence would be a 
 misfortune, and that a petition for a reprieve would be 
 signed, not only by an immense number of parents and 
 professors, but by the specially tempted and by those 
 who know that she is probably their sole chance of being 
 decent. I take it that you will pay no attention to those 
 who represent merely her automatic devotees; and now I 
 leave the affair in your hands, as alone deft enough to un- 
 ravel a skein so tangled as to baffle human ingenuity." 
 
 The Judge's face was that of a philosopher pondering 
 over the intricacies of a problem rather than of one em- 
 ployed in deciding the fate of a human being. In the 
 prisoner he saw a principle which forms an integral part 
 of civilisation, and he accepted the fact that the more 
 complex it becomes, the more that principle is bound to 
 exist. Never was there a figure more antipathetic to 
 his outlook, but his charm lay in his being equally, if not 
 more occupied with what was outside his range, but 
 none the less absorbing in his eyes. Indeed, he seemed 
 to curtail his sympathies where he was most intrigued, 
 lest any sediment of self should colour his decisions or en- 
 danger his courtesy. 
 
 In this instance he could give full vent to his interest, 
 and, as he looked at the accused, he pitied her for the 
 r61e she had to play, realising that she was necessary in 
 so far as the race had ceased to be simple. He was con- 
 scious that she was confined to no age or circumstance, 
 and that she had the key to many a fair garden, though 
 the open country knew her not. He was accustomed to 
 her numerous disguises and the various aliases she had
 
 210 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 adopted, not being shortsighted enough to regard her 
 present title as more than the outcome of a smug and 
 respectable moment. In other countries and at other 
 periods she had been more picturesque, but the spirit 
 of the world had always followed on the plucking of the 
 fruit and had commissioned her to be its champion. 
 When he addressed her he maintained an impersonal 
 attitude, and there was something great in the way this 
 mystic raised the drabbest details because of their bear- 
 ing on the welfare of humanity. 
 
 "I wonder whether you have at any time regretted 
 the work in which you were employed, or the lifelessness 
 which you produced in everything that was paralysed 
 by your presence." 
 
 "For the most part originality is non-existent among 
 my followers, but it sometimes seemed, even to me, vil- 
 lainous to lead captive those who had the germs of 
 glee." 
 
 "Why do you parade under the guise of a woman, who 
 presumably suggests tenderness, or, at least, is supposed 
 to shed tears for those whom she has injured?" 
 
 "Because her cruelty can be greater than that of men, 
 and she can sustain her vindictiveness longer, in spite 
 of the cries of her victims." 
 
 "Though your statement was defiant, would you 
 gravely assert that, having owned yourself to be the 
 kill-joy of your day, you have effected good? " 
 
 "Since I take no actual pleasure in frolics or vice, I 
 am, to a large extent, on the side of the angels, provided 
 that, in their flight, they are careful of their drapery."
 
 MRS. GRUNDY 211 
 
 "What is your position when laxity prevails and when 
 virtue is regarded as a mark of want of breeding?" 
 "I then adopt another dress and join the revels." 
 "And when puritanism is to the fore?" 
 "None is soberer or more unctuous than myself." 
 "How would you briefly define your scheme?" 
 "As I have already outlined it, my scheme has been 
 to make mortals arrange their affairs by the creature 
 rather than by the Creator, and care for nothing save 
 the approval of their fellows, lest they should win the 
 reward of Him who seeth in secret." 
 
 "Do you mean that each should love his neighbour?" 
 "On the contrary, that he should fear him, though 
 he should lose no opportunity of getting the better of 
 him when possible, and of scandalising him in his ab- 
 sence." 
 
 "Have you any apprehensions as to the verdict which 
 I may pronounce? " 
 
 "None, for, though you may express your opinion, it 
 has no value for those for whom you do not exist." 
 "What would you say if I condemned you to death?" 
 "The condemnation would never take effect, as an- 
 other Mrs. Grundy would immediately appear, and a 
 reaction in my favour would follow such drastic meas- 
 ures." 
 
 The Judge then summed up: "I find myself in agree- 
 ment with much that you have stated in your evidence, 
 and understand how you represent a guild of the super- 
 ficial and less adventurous, which acquits you of per- 
 sonal responsibility. Having had much intercourse with
 
 2i2 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 your friends the Scribes and Pharisees, I feel to a certain 
 extent at home in your company, but I have always pre- 
 ferred that of publicans and sinners. It would not be fair, 
 however, to disregard the righteousness of the former, 
 which has been rebuked before now, not because of its 
 existence, but because of its shortcomings. I have no 
 prejudice against manners, provided they are not over- 
 done, and am in favour, at times, of the stately and the 
 dignified, if not adopted for effect. The reason I have 
 an unalloyed contempt for you, which would not obtain 
 in the case of a real personality, is that no form should 
 be called good if it is only form. Your harmfulness lies 
 in having made men look, not so much down, as on a 
 level with themselves, which is the more fatal to their 
 ever looking upward, so that between you and myself 
 there is bound to be an unwritten antagonism. 
 
 "How it is that your disciples have been willing to 
 barter the Kingdom of God for such as you I have never 
 been able to comprehend. On your own showing, you 
 have supplied them with funereal dulness, but they still 
 worship you as a goddess, and willingly allow you to 
 tread on them with your high-heeled shoes, or, as at 
 the present moment, with your largish boots. I can 
 only assume that the mutual admiration society of the 
 unintelligent means more to them than the contempla- 
 tion of the stars, the glory of a gallop, entrancing music, 
 or the sting of a storm at sea. Your advocate has rightly 
 pointed out the advantage of yourself as a set-off to the 
 Quartier Latin, and certain authors might do well not 
 to forget you, while I commend to your attention the
 
 MRS. GRUNDY 213 
 
 Press, which needs a portion of you as an antidote. 
 There are traits in your character which I am not above 
 admiring, but I implore you to keep off the children, 
 to avoid schools, and to leave the Senate House severely 
 alone, lest there should be a general revolt against you, 
 when the ruin would bring you no pleasure, and the spoils 
 would fall to your mortal enemy. 
 
 "It is with that enemy I would advise you to live, if 
 you are both to exist at once, and I can imagine that, 
 if you and Dame Nature were to see a little more of 
 each other, it might bring about considerable good. 
 What I would seek to effect is your combination, though 
 I can fancy that at first you would find yourselves by no 
 means congenial companions. You would serve to check 
 her wildness,and she might learn from you improvements 
 in her dress which would prove some consolation to you, 
 though I should be sorry if she took you altogether as a 
 pattern. You could not dwell with her long without 
 being better, and, if her children clambered round your 
 neck, you would one day break into a laugh. You must 
 know her to discover that, in spite of her rough exterior, 
 she can smile as no other woman; and, if you dare to 
 stay with her, she can kiss away tears where the ten- 
 derest mother fails. Without a doubt she will often 
 curse you, and you, on your part, will hate her for her 
 contempt of money, diamonds, pearls, and similar trifles, 
 but if you want warmth and glow and, above all, com- 
 plete understanding, you will find her the most sympa- 
 thetic and forgiving of friends. She may not pray much, 
 at least formally, and she may frighten you by her
 
 214 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 tirades against the ceremonies which are the breath of 
 life to you, but when it comes to a pinch and when you 
 are thirsty, she will give you water from a rippling brook 
 and milk in a lordly dish. It is beyond my power to 
 make people love one another, and to insist on it has 
 often had the reverse effect, but there is one argument 
 which seldom fails to a person of your type namely, 
 that she needs your help. Without you she will de- 
 generate, but with you in moderate doses she will vastly 
 improve, and I close with looking forward to the time 
 when two of the world's greatest enemies, if separated, 
 shall together prove a valuable friend."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE CLERIC 
 
 THERE was a strong atmosphere of piety about 
 him, as he faced the situation with a calm and 
 dignity all in his favour. A closer scrutiny 
 suggested less strength, while the thinness of his lips 
 gave no good impression. His obstinacy was evident, 
 and it was clear that he would not be easily dislodged 
 from his position. He recalled hundreds like himself, 
 and introduced a separate caste which was alien to the 
 directness of the Court. It would be difficult to explain 
 the sense of stiffness which he brought with him, com- 
 bined with an unmistakable goodness that permeated 
 his whole being. His assurance, in spite of an exagger- 
 ated humility, gave rise to irritation, and as he took his 
 seat with exemplary deference, he seemed unconscious 
 of the reason why he had been summoned. 
 
 He had prepared no defence, deeming it unnecessary 
 for one of his integrity, and no one could have denied 
 him an admirable courage and willingness to suffer. 
 The importance of the proceedings was magnified by 
 the influence which he had obviously wielded, while his 
 meeting with the Judge, whom he resembled, yet from 
 whom he was strangely dissimilar, created profound in- 
 
 215
 
 216 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 terest. The fact that he had been out to save his gen- 
 eration was beyond question, but the success or failure 
 of his mission remained to be proved. The longer you 
 watched him, the more you loved and were repelled 
 by him, nor could you avoid the conclusion that he was 
 hardly so much an individual as the holder of an office 
 that had been handed down without a change for cen- 
 turies. To what country he belonged, it did not even 
 occur to the observer to ask, as all else was merged in 
 his portrayal of religion, which was common to every age, 
 and to the most varied forms of faith. The Judge's posi- 
 tion was rendered the more difficult since the Cleric 
 seemed to regard any punishment as almost a luxury. 
 Penitence having been a constant habit, he rose to make 
 his confession as to the manner born, though the notion 
 of being taken at his own valuation would to him have 
 appeared preposterous. 
 
 "I would begin by owning," he said, "that I am a 
 grievous sinner, and that I am conscious of having left 
 undone much which ought to have been done and done 
 much which had best been omitted. In view of the 
 sanctity of my calling, my dedication to the noblest 
 ends and my separation from ordinary folk, I cannot 
 but feel that I have fallen short in many particulars. 
 More than once it has struck me that, though I never 
 shrank from the most menial tasks, I felt superior in 
 doing them, and looked down on those towards whom I 
 assumed an abject attitude, but who were virtually in 
 my hands. From my youth I was brought up to look 
 upon myself as a medium between God and man, and
 
 THE CLERIC 217 
 
 though I preferred to remain poor, the better to illus- 
 trate the ministry, I have always held that the power of 
 the State was nothing to that of the priesthood, nor am 
 I one of those who believe in over intimacy with the 
 uninitiated. I hope that I have spared no effort to save 
 a soul, but my chief anxiety was the correctness of his 
 creed. By correctness I mean that it should tally with 
 my own, having been instructed that the secret of uni- 
 versal Truth had by some miracle of Grace been placed 
 in our hands. The misfortune of the pagan and the 
 fact of his being in an overwhelming majority used to 
 distress me, but, as I became more subservient to the 
 Divine Will, I ceased to trouble about these matters as 
 beyond me, and as interfering with the even tenour of my 
 days. In this I may have been remiss, but I rejoice to 
 think that missionary zeal is on the increase, though I 
 have little or no use for the vague enthusiasm which is 
 sadly callous as to rites and ceremonies dearer to me 
 than the questionable benefits of civilisation. 
 
 "Not that I do not believe in Universalism, though I 
 prefer the Greek word, and would, I trust, willingly offer 
 my frail body at the stake in its defence; but a dangerous 
 conception of its meaning now obtains, and I wish to 
 make it plain that the term is applicable only to those 
 who strictly adhere to the limitations of our special body. 
 How it is so, I cannot say, but this is another of the mys- 
 teries which I would rather leave and which have never 
 ruffled my equanimity. My dear brothers outside the 
 pale call me a bigot on certain points, but, as I have re- 
 peatedly stated in our Magazine, I cannot for an instant
 
 218 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 surrender the keystone of our edifice, without which it 
 would crumble to the ground. If a single concession is 
 made to our beloved enemies in this respect, I would 
 answer by an argument which I hold to be invincible, 
 and which takes the form of a question namely, Where 
 should we be? Concerning the fate of the millions of 
 infants who have never been subjected to baptism, with- 
 out consulting them, I can only refer to certain passages 
 of the Holy Fathers, and cheerfully add this to the mys- 
 teries to which I have alluded. 
 
 "I would confess that I may perhaps have failed in 
 technical obedience to my superiors, but here I would 
 dwell on the fact that I did not agree with them, and, 
 though this may suggest personal inspiration, I would 
 take refuge in the special privileges of my office. I 
 hope that I have never been found wanting in rudeness 
 when it was my duty, but I lived in troublous times, 
 when the laity threatened to encroach on our sacred 
 precincts, and when it was necessary to keep them in 
 their place. On the present occasion I am surprised 
 and even hurt at being arraigned before one in whom 
 I am unable to see the emblems of an authority com- 
 petent to deal with such as myself. I should have 
 thought that I had the right to be tried by one of my 
 peers, but I wish to accept my disappointment with a 
 good grace, and to listen with becoming respect to your 
 admonitions." 
 
 The advocate braced himself for a great effort, not 
 forgetting that the issues of the soul were far greater 
 than those connected with the material side of life. It
 
 THE CLERIC 219 
 
 was strange that his friendship with the accused was 
 not more intimate, and, though he undertook his task 
 with a certain sympathy, it lacked the personal touch 
 apparent in some of the more human and, on paper, 
 more criminal cases. 
 
 "I have never known the prisoner well," he said, 
 "though I have seldom been absent from him, and he 
 has made it a constant rule to quote me as his inward 
 monitor and guide. Possibly I may be prejudiced, but, 
 having taken genuine pleasure in our early companion- 
 ship, as the years went on I regret to say that I lost 
 heart, and felt comparatively frozen out as his humane- 
 ness decreased. Nevertheless I am bound to be a wit- 
 ness to his virtues, and to an unselfishness bordering 
 on self-immolation. From morning to night he was 
 engaged in good works, which rendered him impregnable 
 on the part of those who felt the fallacy of his position; 
 but the meekness of his bearing and his willingness to 
 receive rebuke disarmed his opponents, and rendered him 
 a subject for adulation among the devout. 
 
 "I would not imply that this involved compliance 
 with what was not allowed by the trade union to which 
 he belonged, but the semblance of great lowliness was 
 mistaken for the genuine article. That he had the es- 
 sence of these attributes at the outset I have not a shadow 
 of doubt, nor was he aware that by degrees they became 
 an advertisement, to the disgust of many who were striv- 
 ing to rid themselves of their own egoism without making 
 any fuss. I myself have often been enthused by the un- 
 worldliness and severity to self exhibited by the prisoner,
 
 220 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 until the fateful kink of clericalism displayed itself and 
 drove me into obscurity. I could tell of deeds of devo- 
 tion which put his critics to shame, and, so far as morals 
 were concerned, of a blameless life which was a protest 
 against the slackness of his age. His disposition had an 
 extremely sweet side when he forgot his office, while 
 his tenderness to the sick or dying was phenomenal. He 
 spared himself no pains where there was any sign of 
 trouble, and, although it is true that he was domineering 
 and never lost the manner of a schoolmaster, he thought 
 nothing of sharing his meals, sitting up at night, and 
 wearing himself out on behalf of others. He reproached 
 himself for the slightest dereliction of duty, and would 
 have looked on a 'comfortable living,' or the least per- 
 sonal indulgence as a fall from grace. 
 
 "His mere presence cleansed the streets in his imme- 
 diate neighbourhood, and the purity of his face inspired 
 many to aim at holiness. Legends of charity and kind- 
 ness gathered round him, till he was credited with mir- 
 aculous powers by those who esteemed him as something 
 more than man. He preferred to live in a class beneath 
 his own, feeling that, like a Brahmin, he could afford 
 to disregard social distinctions. His knowledge of the 
 world was nil, which may account for his contractions. 
 So fascinated was he with mediaevalism that he chose to 
 wear blinkers, and to persuade himself that progress was 
 an invention of the devil. He really believed that he 
 and his ilk had the key of knowledge, though an in- 
 spection of his library showed that his reading was lim- 
 ited to theological works. Allowance must be made for
 
 THE CLERIC 221 
 
 his combative instinct, which caused him to rejoice in a 
 discussion as a soldier longs for a scrap. His hatred of 
 heresy approached a mania, though it would be difficult 
 to define what heresy meant for him. His master passion 
 was the salvation of the world, but if that world refused 
 to be saved according to his methods, he consigned it to 
 hell without a qualm, and his lack of hesitation prompted 
 many to adore one who was certain of the unknowable. 
 
 "If my remarks have been caustic and my praise 
 problematical, it is because there is such virtue in the 
 accused, and I am so disturbed by the net result of his 
 influence on any country, that I can only leave the ad- 
 justment to your Lordship, whose charity covers a mul- 
 titude of faults which were never intended, taking into 
 account every effort, however misguided, to bring about 
 the Kingdom of Heaven among men." 
 
 The demeanour of the Judge recalled that of a parent 
 to a child who had not understood. He felt no anger, 
 since the heart of the accused was in tune with his own, 
 and in his talk he took it for granted that the mistakes 
 of this would-be martyr were traceable more to ignorance 
 and the tyranny of tradition than to himself. 
 
 "I should be glad if you could explain to me how your 
 conception of life corresponded to facts as you found 
 them, and how you proposed to deal with the tragedies 
 of existence by your teaching." 
 
 "I carefully abstained from facing the former, and, 
 as to the latter, I was brought up to consider that my 
 duty began and ended with insistence on my particular 
 faith."
 
 222 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "When you say brought up, did you always occupy 
 this position?" 
 
 "By no means, having been much the same as others 
 and enjoying the world to the full, until I was mercifully 
 instructed in a training which employed the interval 
 between the University and my ordination." 
 
 "Was it then that you left your manhood behind you 
 and learned to adopt a casuistry foreign to your nature 
 and to the instincts of your country?" 
 
 "My sole answer is that we were carefully and rigidly 
 educated in doctrines that had been handed down from 
 time immemorial." 
 
 "Did you compare the longevity of other creeds with 
 that of your own? " 
 
 "I can't say it occurred to me, but I looked on 
 the world as immersed in darkness until our Light 
 came." 
 
 "What was your attitude, for instance, towards the 
 Jews?" 
 
 "I pitied them and always felt a personal aversion to 
 them, though I supported missions designed to assist 
 them to a knowledge of the truth." 
 
 "How would you have known your special truth unless 
 it had come to you through them?" 
 
 "That is an awkward question, and I must confess that 
 their Psalms have been one of my greatest helps." 
 
 "Did not the law of evolution come home to you, and 
 did it not appear possible that the relation of your creed 
 to theirs (from your point of view) might be as the full- 
 blown rose to the bud?"
 
 THE CLERIC 223 
 
 "An interesting metaphor, though a trifle humbling 
 to those of us who have had the special revelation." 
 
 "What would you say of Buddha, Mahomet, and other 
 well-known names in trie development of religious 
 thought?" 
 
 "I am afraid that they were sadly misled, and have al- 
 ways looked on them as outside the fold." 
 
 "Have you ever read the Koran?" 
 
 "Most certainly not, though I have heard that it con- 
 tains passages unfit for publication." 
 
 "Are you interested in other religions which affect 
 millions of your fellow-beings?" 
 
 "I think it dangerous to dabble in such literature, and 
 have rigorously avoided what might tempt me to doubt." 
 
 "Would you say there were many religions? " 
 
 "Unfortunately, yes." 
 
 "How many gods would you say there were? " 
 
 "Only one." 
 
 "Then how can there be more than one religion? " 
 
 "You are getting too abstruse, and I should be more at 
 home if we were talking about our own, when I could sup- 
 ply you with all the parochial details you might require." 
 
 "How did you stand towards science, and the difficul- 
 ties which assailed the rising generation in believing what 
 you insisted on as not only proven, but incapable of 
 expansion?" 
 
 "I never ceased to warn the young against any growth 
 in knowledge which might shake them in the faith of their 
 forefathers." 
 
 "Were you much given to the study of your own Sa-
 
 224 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 cred Books, bound together in a Volume which you must 
 have held exceeding dear?" 
 
 "I confess that I preferred a compilation of prayers 
 made by the authorities centuries ago, though it en- 
 tailed regular reading of portions of the Volume referred 
 to at stated hours." 
 
 "I understand; but, to put it plainly, was it this Book 
 which coloured your life and was at the back of all your 
 actions, or was it the Church to which you belonged, and 
 which made you regard that Book as secondary to its 
 commands?" 
 
 "I would assert that it was the latter rather than the 
 former by which I regulated my days, being opposed to the 
 theory that these Sacred Books should be in the hands of 
 the ignorant unless interpreted by the clergy." 
 
 "Did your mother bring you up like that?" 
 
 "I cannot say she did." 
 
 "What was the result of her living on the Book? " 
 
 "The most beautiful life I can imagine, and one which, 
 I regret to say, I rarely see nowadays." 
 
 "Did you positively believe that the majority of each 
 generation would be doomed to eternal flames?" 
 
 "I am afraid I did, but now you put it so baldly, I 
 expect it was no more than a pious opinion, though I still 
 hold that, if there be a God, there must also be a Hell." 
 
 "In that I agree with you, and all who forget the 
 former find themselves in the latter, though its nature 
 and duration for them may be otherwise than your 
 dogmas implied. It would be interesting to know what 
 you thought of the various forms of your own creed
 
 THE CLERIC 225 
 
 which were aiming at the same goal, but through other 
 methods." 
 
 "I fear they were anathema to me and, at times, even 
 worse namely, vulgar." 
 
 "What would you say was the strongest influence in 
 your official life, apart from the devotional side, on which 
 I have no wish to cast any discredit? " 
 
 "We had an excellent newspaper, which effected our 
 union and sustained our zeal in an admirable manner." 
 
 "Was it conducive to the spirit of charity?" 
 
 "On the contrary, or its sales would have gone down 
 and we should have run the risk of hopelessly agreeing 
 with one another." 
 
 "How can you associate such an enterprise with the 
 Founder of your Creed, whose object was to bring men 
 together and make them love each other, as the sole mark 
 of His discipleship? " 
 
 "The journal alluded to often spoke of such union, on 
 condition that its readers adhered to its own plan. But, 
 if there had been no controversy, our lives would have 
 been dreary in the extreme, and, save for its weekly pub- 
 lication, we might have forgotten that we were continu- 
 ally at war." 
 
 "At war with whom?" 
 
 "With our fellow disciples who would not accept our 
 shibboleths." 
 
 "Would you not call that a sinister influence of the 
 worst kind?" 
 
 "It was patronised by the holiest among us, and con- 
 ducted on strictly business principles."
 
 226 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Did it often refer to the Book which I mentioned? " 
 
 "I thought I had explained that, if once this Book were 
 read and believed in by all, such a paper could not have 
 existed, and, from a party point of view, we should have 
 become disorganized." 
 
 "Did it never occur to you that such narrowness was 
 fatal to bringing about this communion? " 
 
 "I was of opinion that this was alone obtainable by 
 the observance of one set of rules, drawn up by holy men 
 of old and insisted on without exception, however large 
 the majority of those who refused, to their own destruc- 
 tion, to accept them." 
 
 "Was your mind made up on the subject of marriage, 
 or did you consider the multitudes who suffered through 
 terrible mistakes and were chained together to their mut- 
 ual damnation? " 
 
 "I was glad to think that when the magic words had 
 been spoken by us, who thus acquired dominion over 
 the home, no change was possible, and any reconsidera- 
 tion of the question was out of the power of those con- 
 cerned." 
 
 And so on and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 The Judge saw that to convince the accused was hope- 
 less, but in giving his judgment he preserved the same 
 sense of pity for his utter lack of imagination, and for the 
 gross conceit which characterised him. 
 
 "I am more grieved than I can say at the attitude 
 which you still maintain, but you are not so much to be 
 condemned as those who twisted your nature, when 
 you were hardly more than a boy, and turned you into
 
 THE CLERIC 227 
 
 a machine for their own ends. That men are prone to 
 idolatry goes without saying, and there is little difference 
 between those who worship the letter of a book and 
 those who adore a piece of bread which they affect to be 
 able to change into the Creator Himself. Both may have 
 a considerable element of truth, but it is incumbent on 
 all to realise that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth 
 life. It is pitiable that you should not have been more 
 intent on walking in the footsteps of Him whom you 
 call Master. He was crucified not by the bad, but by 
 the religious of His day, because He pointed out all that 
 was involved in what they professed to believe, though 
 for them it had become hardly more than formalism. 
 
 "True, the power of your uniform among the masses, 
 especially in the villages, is enormous, but it is on the 
 wane. The reason is that you over-magnify your office, 
 that you are not so simple or so humble as you appear, 
 and that, when it comes to plain loving, you act it out 
 rather less than the average man. This wretched in- 
 ternecine warfare is ruining your cause, as also your 
 exaggerated interest in questions which have no refer- 
 ence to life. When it is a matter of genuine trouble, 
 such as abounds on every side, thoughtful men have no 
 use for those who are concerned with points that have 
 no more bearing on actualities than the distinctions 
 between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. 
 
 "You are too few to afford to fall out, and, if you would 
 inspire men, you should preserve a united front against 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil, which are your only 
 real enemies. Your heart should be as big as the uni-
 
 228 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 verse, and you should remember that all souls, whatever 
 their belief, are equally dear in the sight of Him who 
 brought them into being. You have no right to domi- 
 nate your fellows, or to insist that their arrangements 
 should be subject in every detail to your behests. Surely, 
 since you took what you call 'Orders/ your duty is to 
 take them from those set over you, and it is nothing less 
 than wicked to aid and abet the superstitious tendencies 
 of men by claiming supernatural powers which you have 
 never possessed. 
 
 "If it is true that confession is necessary, it should be 
 mutual. It is iniquitous that you should spoil the har- 
 mony of households, or get under your thumb young 
 people at an impressionable age, making it well-nigh 
 impossible for them ever to regain that glorious heritage 
 of liberty for which they were intended. You will dis- 
 cover that, unless you allow men to do their own think- 
 ing, you will soon enough disappear, and, if I might 
 advise you, it would be to read the Book of which you 
 have spoken almost with contempt, though, if you really 
 knew it, and if its spirit had entered into your being, 
 it would do more to bring about genuine religion than 
 any other factor. 
 
 "Do not think that I underrate your special difficulties, 
 or the excellence of the personal life which you led, but 
 I deprecate this introduction of a caste system on which 
 you pride yourself, and which has proved a pest wherever 
 it has prevailed. I regard such journals as you have 
 spoken of with supreme sadness, and it would be a wise 
 rule to refuse to read them, lest bitterness should be culti-
 
 THE CLERIC 229 
 
 vated to the hurt of the common cause. If reduced to 
 facts, it amounts to making money by doing the devil's 
 work of dividing the religiously inclined, than which it 
 is difficult to conceive a more blame-worthy proceeding. 
 
 "As for the other religions, which are more ancient 
 and whose adherents are more numerous than your own, 
 I can only pray that you may treat them with profound 
 respect, remembering that this one God, whom you 
 concede knows best, has elected to speak to the con- 
 science of each in language he can understand. If 
 your Master means anything, He means universal, all- 
 embracing Love, which longs to bring men to the Divine 
 Heart, by whatever paths; and it is only by a life modelled 
 on such an ideal that you will win the world. You will 
 never do it by dragooning or lecturing or scolding, but 
 only by unvaried service and by allowing to each their 
 personal freedom, though always holding up the highest 
 standards, for which you are exceptionally equipped. 
 You will do more harm than you can guess by permitting 
 people to worship you, whereas, if you wish permanently 
 to help your generation, you will step down from your 
 platform and, on a level with your fellows, from whom 
 you also have much to learn, gently persuade them to- 
 wards loving God, which more are desirous of doing than 
 you have any notion. 
 
 "I have no penance to impose, except that you go 
 back to the world as a wealthy squire with a wife and a 
 large family. Your passion will still be the good of the 
 people on your estate, and though a layman, you shall 
 take on you to preach the Gospel and in every possible
 
 230 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 way to bring them to the only source of true happiness. 
 In this you will be thwarted by the parson (your own 
 nominee), who shall act the local pope and shall 
 denounce you as far more guilty than if you were the 
 conventionally wicked man. He himself being ignorant 
 of the meaning of salvation, and limited to providing 
 husks for his children, as he shall call your tenants, will 
 declare it to be outrageous that you should presume to 
 offer them living bread hi words which they can under- 
 stand. As time goes on you will be driven to the con- 
 clusion that only a converted clergy have the right or 
 the power to preach the Gospel, and if they are such, 
 they not only allow the direct action of the Spirit on 
 the hearts of all who have been born again, but are deeply 
 grateful for the fact. Your money will be thrown in 
 your face, and, however much you may suffer within, 
 your martyrdom will be unrecognised, and you will be 
 credited with trespassing on the preserves of the priest- 
 hood, till the whole business nauseates you and you 
 almost despair of making the brotherhood understand. 
 Under such circumstances your discipline will be, with- 
 out sacrificing one iota of the best that is in you, to carry 
 out in all simplicity the essence of the doctrines you have 
 always taught. This will be for you the severest pun- 
 ishment, and it will take you all your time to put those 
 lessons into practice."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 
 
 HIS bearing was that of a man perfectly at his ease 
 and convinced that he was dealing with the 
 affairs of the universe. He represented the 
 union of a perpetual smile and studied solemnity result- 
 ing from long practice, and his wealth of manner made 
 it difficult to believe that he could ever be simple. 
 Withal, there was a coolness of demeanour and lack of 
 candour which told of repression, and of his having be- 
 come more of a machine than a man. Not that he did 
 not show every token of courtesy and readiness to please, 
 but, if you had wanted a favour, the Partisan was the 
 last person to whom you would have gone unless with 
 the offer of votes in exchange. He had a sangfroid which 
 bid fair not to be easily upset, and, if peace and war 
 hung in the balance, he would have remained unmoved. 
 The effect was both alluring and displeasing, while 
 you would have been hard put to it where to place him 
 socially. The result was a masterpiece of unreality, 
 yet you could not fail to detect lines denoting power, 
 and a flash in the eyes telling of enthusiasm without 
 inspiration. In any case unwonted interest was aroused 
 as to the causes productive of such a type, whose very 
 
 231
 
 232 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 presence chilled the air and dealt a death-blow to schemes 
 for the country's good. Many other characters would 
 doubtless have been classed as more wicked than this 
 astute spinner of plates, but for few was it harder to 
 feel any love. He observed, as was his habit, the eti- 
 quette of the moment, suggesting that, so far as he was 
 concerned, everything was in order. He had served 
 on so many committees that his soul had been reduced 
 to a vanishing point, and he bowed with a stereotyped 
 pleasantness to the Judge, whose expression startled him 
 into becoming almost sincere. 
 
 The probing of the heart was a new experience to this 
 propounder of platitudes, who had grown to regard all 
 emotions as detrimental to the dignity of a great assem- 
 bly. The idea of such a person as himself being sub- 
 jected to the test of truth was a novel situation, the 
 more painful as the verdict rested not with his constitu- 
 ents, whom he had learned to manage, but with one 
 concerned with the conscience of those brought before 
 him. All this slowly unfolded itself to the prisoner, who 
 hated scenes of any kind, but who at last took in the 
 gravity of a position which no official urbanity could 
 affect. 
 
 "I am here in a Court of Law," he began, "to which 
 I am not unaccustomed, to make a statement of my 
 career, but I trust that, though plain speaking is highly 
 unpleasant and has for years been foreign to my nature. 
 it may prove satisfactory. I regret to say that, when I 
 took up politics as a trade, personal ambition was my 
 prime motive. I was attracted not only by the publicity
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 233 
 
 which it promised, but by its honours and rewards. In 
 my younger days patriotism was for me a strong 
 ideal, but I soon found it too expensive, as it in- 
 volved the martyrdom of ' the mean, ' for which I was 
 not prepared. 
 
 "Coming from a stock which required to raise itself, 
 and being devoid of the gambling spirit, I put this at- 
 tractive picture from me, though I satisfied my scruples 
 by the subterfuge that when I had made a great name 
 I might use it for the general weal. I inwardly scouted 
 the theory of sacrifice, and could never adopt literally 
 the legend of One who, after being condemned for a 
 criminal, occupied a throne. The dreams of my youth 
 were those of glory without previous shame. The Gos- 
 pel, though the pathos of the book never failed to touch 
 me, would have altered all my schemes if I had gone 
 further than admiring the Hero. Politically He inter- 
 ested me, but, though I saw how easily His Name might 
 be used on a platform, the more I read of Him, the more 
 I became convinced that He could not be claimed by 
 either side. This is why I laid the volume down, as it 
 would have been an awkward companion in the journey 
 which I intended to make. 
 
 " Fortunately for me I had a ready tongue, what is 
 called an excellent address, a heart thoroughly in order, 
 and a minimum of conscience, so I started well. I saw 
 plainly that I could only make headway by adopting 
 certain shibboleths, and I soon found that honesty would 
 have landed me on a cross bench, since I discovered 
 myself to be in agreement on many points with both
 
 234 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 sides. To such ridiculous suggestions I gave the quietus, 
 but this did not prevent my indulging in fine sentiments 
 about every consideration being merged in the salvation 
 of the Empire. Before I knew it the Vox Populi be- 
 came for me the Vox Dei, experts on the subject hav- 
 ing taught me that the truest skill lay in detecting the 
 same, while professing to lead it. 
 
 "In the meantime I avoided contact with anything 
 which might prove an annoyance, for health became in- 
 creasingly important, and I had to keep myself in perfect 
 preservation. Party system prevented any attack of 
 nerves. The more automatic I became, the easier it 
 was to consort privately with my opponents, each of us 
 being equally callous, yet hugely philosophical over our 
 good cheer. We became adepts at simulated enthusiasm, 
 and virtually entered into a bargain as to which side 
 should be in or out, almost on the half-time principle in a 
 match. The item of country retired into comparative 
 insignificance, except now and again when we blazed out 
 into pretended fury, to the admiration of the masses, who 
 enjoyed the farce, backing us as supporters are apt to do 
 their favourites in the ring. We had not the remotest 
 intention of hurting one another, and, when the contest 
 was over, we discussed the matter with perfect amity 
 and pocketed our fees. 
 
 "However despicable this may appear, any other 
 method was impossible. Had we been out for genuine 
 service, we should have found it difficult to keep the ball 
 rolling, since we should have arrived at our conclusions 
 and have had to get to solid work sooner than was agree-
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 235 
 
 able. I admit also having thwarted movements for 
 which I had deep respect from the moment that I found 
 they interfered with party plans, allowing others to 
 suffer for principles which I secretly admired, while I 
 openly denounced those who held them as offenders 
 against law and order. I feel unable to confess, even 
 here, to the tricks of which I, in common with many of 
 my companions, was guilty, but I think I touched my 
 lowest when I mercilessly trod on the defenceless and, 
 while so doing, was hailed as a saviour of my country. 
 
 "No one need tell me of the heroes in the same House 
 who were bearing the burden and heat of the day and 
 who were never mentioned. When it served my purpose 
 to deride them I did so, with an assumed warmth which 
 procured for me the gratitude of the public. I feel 
 ashamed to recall conversations I had with my wife 
 after these exhibitions, when she strove to allay my mis- 
 givings with the thought of the honours which she 
 might eventually share as the price of my un worthiness. 
 Possibly if I had been alone in the world, I should have 
 thrown in my lot with the real men to whom my honour 
 inclined me, but, though I was officially opposed to fe- 
 male domination, I am by no means sure that my poli- 
 tics were not somewhat coloured by home influence. If 
 I were asked whether I repent, I should say that, having 
 become insensible to the spur of noble impulse, I cannot 
 weep unless the word has been passed round from my 
 leaders. I realise as a politician that I misused one of 
 the greatest trusts which can be put into a man's hands, 
 and from my heart I wish some chance of redemption
 
 236 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 might be afforded me, though, if I were to repent pub- 
 licly, I should not be heard of again. 
 
 "With a wave of sincerity which takes me off my feet, 
 I accuse myself of having been an eloquent charlatan, 
 and nothing more. Unintentionally I have been ruined 
 by my gifts, while the world looms larger for me than 
 ever it used to do. The seductions of good living, the 
 snares of notoriety, and the fascination of the limelight 
 have caused me to forget the zeal in which I once in- 
 dulged. When I recall how easily I was affected by 
 pain and how I burned to become the champion of every 
 noble cause, I hang down my head with shame to think 
 to what I have reduced myself in the pursuit of power. 
 Witnessing as I did that main principles were at a dis- 
 count, and that everything fell flat unless rivalry was 
 imported into it, I saw that there was no place for meek- 
 ness in one who desired to get to the top of the ladder. 
 This is why I sounded the battle-cry of Party and did 
 my best to make my voice ring throughout the land, 
 though I was not half so earnest nor half so keen as when 
 I knelt in our simple home and pleaded that I might one 
 day become a patriot. It is clear to me what might 
 have been accomplished had I not been moved by ego- 
 ism, and I trust that, after hearing my tardy admissions, 
 you will indicate a way in which I may be allowed to 
 prove my devotion to the land of my birth, which still 
 holds the highest place in my affections." 
 
 The advocate in his address betrayed more emotion 
 than had been shown by his client, except at the last, and, 
 in defending the Partisan, said: "I would preface my
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 237 
 
 remarks by stating that I have always been the accused's 
 best friend, though it is hard to recognise in the speaker 
 the boy who was so lovable. He has become hardened 
 almost out of knowledge, but the feelings which he de- 
 nies, though dormant, are more powerful than he imag- 
 ines. I remember how he dreamed of laying down his 
 life to expiate the wrongs which reason told him demand 
 a substitute in every age. In those days he was an im- 
 mature Curtius, asking for a gulf into which to fling 
 himself, and so clear-sighted was he that he detected 
 precisely where it yawned. It was not till later that to 
 his distorted vision this gulf appeared to have closed to- 
 gether and to be carpeted with flowers, some of which he 
 always wore as a token that all was well. 
 
 "I would ask your Lordship's indulgence in dealing 
 with his public life, with its starving and gradual numb- 
 ing of moral sensibility. I would call attention to the 
 great danger of its rewards, and to the weight of its re- 
 sponsibilities, which, if seriously entered upon, have often 
 proved too great for human endurance. The inconsis- 
 tencies confessed by the Partisan are intelligible when it 
 is taken into consideration how rarely any, short of a 
 genius, can afford to be himself if he desires ultimately 
 to succeed. The question of country receded all too 
 easily in favour of party when what had been originally 
 his vocation degenerated into a profession. I would 
 argue that he has been punished severely for this in hav- 
 ing lost a joy for which nothing could atone, and having 
 forfeited a rapture which is the perquisite of the disin- 
 terested. This calls for compassion, and I know that
 
 238 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 you will not be misled by a surface success which, 
 for a man whose eyes have been opened, brings its own 
 doom. 
 
 "The natural impulses of the accused were higher 
 than those he has deplored, but, so ruthless is the effect 
 of party and such is the price of exploiting the name of 
 Fatherland for private gain, that its victims cease to be 
 ashamed of its betrayal, provided this may add to their 
 distinction. I have seen the Partisan, on his way home 
 after a division, despising himself as he was cheered by 
 the crowd whom he had been willing to spoil by his or- 
 atory in order to gain their suffrages, but conscious in his 
 own heart that, if he had told them the truth, they would 
 have become his enemies. At least he would have felt 
 a man. I intercede for one whose real self is good, on the 
 ground that, had he lived in other times, when money 
 counted for less and ideas for more, he would have be- 
 come apostolic. Had there been call for pluck, in which 
 he was never deficient, to defend hearth and home, with- 
 out distinction of party and without room for hypocrisy, 
 he would have been among the first to shed his blood on 
 the battlefield." 
 
 The Judge regarded the accused with respect for the 
 brilliant promise of his early life, but with sadness at the 
 clouds by which it had been eclipsed. He looked on the 
 Partisan with infinite sorrow when he thought how the 
 affairs of the city might become a game for personal ends. 
 He figured millions whose welfare largely depended on the 
 motives of legislators, and it came to him that, unless 
 there was something more than oratory or ability at the
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 239 
 
 back of their words, these would die on the passing 
 breeze. He recalled exceptions who had been as con- 
 spicuous for piety as for eloquence, nor was it surprising 
 that they had swayed the hearts of the people as wind 
 the standing corn. Whatever their keenness as poli- 
 ticians while they lived, so eminently in touch with 
 Heaven had they been that their party spirit had long 
 been forgotten, but their names were world- wide and im- 
 perishable. This simple man, with no honours attach- 
 ing, but with an unbounded love for mankind, was deeply 
 moved as he strove to bring back the prisoner to the 
 visions of his early days. His desire was to reproduce in 
 him his secret longing to become a public benefactor, 
 which he had endangered from the moment he had first 
 spoken of it. 
 
 The following conversation passed between them : 
 
 "Was it ambition which led you to enter public life, 
 or was there an admixture of impulses, such as the desire 
 to raise your family, and to win the praise of those whom 
 you most respected?" 
 
 "I was mainly influenced by the former, though my 
 temptation is to plead the latter, which doubtless played 
 a certain part, and possibly the strongest, after I had 
 won my spurs." 
 
 "How far were you affected by money in taking up 
 politics?" 
 
 "Not originally, but later it became a great incentive, 
 until I was willing to sell my soul for office, seeing that 
 otherwise I could not keep up the position I had 
 reached."
 
 240 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "How would you account for your change of views, 
 which, at the time, was tantamount to a scandal?" 
 
 "I regret to say that I should never have crossed the 
 House unless I had been assured that my chances would 
 be improved by so doing. The fact is that I soon looked 
 at every question, not from the point of view of what I 
 felt, but of what I persuaded myself the country wanted. 
 Given such an attitude, it became almost immaterial to 
 me on which side I was, though I hate myself now more 
 than I can say for leaving my party when it was in 
 low water. I worked, however, immensely hard for the 
 Opposition, having detected the turn of the tide which 
 was sweeping it into power." 
 
 "Did you grow to be convinced of its sincerity and 
 become genuinely converted? " 
 
 "I can hardly say that I did. By that time I had 
 ceased to be much interested in aught save party tri- 
 umph. If I was fully satisfied that our measures were 
 for the public good, I was still more influenced by the 
 fact that it was we who had initiated them." 
 
 "Were you hurt by the woes of the poor, the disad- 
 vantages of women, the discrepancies between private 
 convictions and public statements, and much that, to a 
 sensitive person, would have come perilously near to 
 falsehood?" 
 
 "Possibly, to a certain degree, but I was a public man, 
 and what my party decided, that I accepted, without 
 going into sophistries which would render politics intol- 
 erable." 
 
 "Did you love your country, through talking about
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 241 
 
 which you made your fortune and achieved a standing 
 out of all proportion to your merits?" 
 
 "Yes, in a vague sort of way; at least I was always 
 ready to abuse the foreigner, if it was in the air, unless 
 there was some Entente on hand, when it would have 
 been absurd to look too closely into the morale of the 
 proceedings." 
 
 "Did you pose at all as a religionist?" 
 
 "Now and again. If I remember rightly, I was more 
 than once quoted as a champion of the orthodox Church, 
 while at another time I was hailed as a liberator of the 
 oppressed from the chains which she had forged through 
 ages of superstition and fraud. Needless to say I was 
 on different sides on these occasions." 
 
 "Did you never feel rebuked as you witnessed the self- 
 sacrifice of others for the truths you had once adored? " 
 
 "Certainly. What I do not seem able to explain 
 to myself is that I daily became less susceptible of a loy- 
 alty which would have landed me in a minority of one, 
 if I had been true to the inward voices." 
 
 "How did you reconcile your conscience to the subter- 
 fuge of pretending to lead public opinion while being led 
 by it, as appears in your confession?" 
 
 "When I heard such a doctrine for the first time from 
 a prominent statesman, I spurned it for what it was 
 worth, yet I not only grew accustomed to it but soon 
 became one of its foremost exponents." 
 
 "Were you not ashamed to regulate your sentiments 
 by your audiences, while you knew that you were deny- 
 ing your private revelations?"
 
 242 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "I confess that I thought only of my victories, and 
 so intoxicated was I with applause that I should have 
 thrust aside everything that threatened my place as an 
 idol of the people." 
 
 "Would you say that, after this brief examination, 
 you are reduced to anything like repentance? " 
 
 "Such an expression would, I think, be premature, but 
 1 begin to see the unwisdom of my plan, not so much 
 from personal sorrow, as from the fact that my influence 
 was superficial, and that my name is bound to be for- 
 gotten." 
 
 "And why should it be forgotten? " 
 
 "Because the foundation was wrong, and because in 
 my inmost heart I am conscious that, if I had had the 
 courage of my convictions, my country would have stood 
 first and I should have been content to be unknown." 
 
 " What is it you care for most at the present moment? " 
 
 "The welfare of the poor, which I have exploited for 
 my own purposes, and the justice which I denied because 
 I held it would not pay." 
 
 "Would you be glad to return and, in the same place, 
 stand up for those same convictions, though they landed 
 you on the cross?" 
 
 "Forgive my answer, but I have had more than 
 enough of public life, preferring, if you can so arrange it, 
 that, without further risk to my vanity, I may serve that 
 same country without mention of my name." 
 
 The Judge regarded the Partisan with respect for his 
 early intentions. There was little anger in his words, 
 knowing as he did that the accused had been morally
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 243 
 
 mad for a series of years, and he measured to a nicety 
 the anguish of a public person in being shorn of his self- 
 esteem. He did not lose sight of the cost of his con- 
 fession to the prisoner, therefore he looked on it as almost 
 a sufficient sentence that he should have been in the 
 dock. Such consideration on the part of the Judge was 
 enhanced by the fact that he himself had tasted fleeting 
 praise, and had the unique gift of being made all things 
 to all men. For the moment the Partisan was to him as 
 Dagon fallen from his pedestal. This is why he was un- 
 usually tender, as also because he knew that the heart 
 of the man before him was in the right place, and that the 
 best democracy was the ground colour of his being. So 
 careful had he been in this regard that he had long felt 
 the need of being alone, and, after any days of special 
 achievement, he would consecrate the nights to commun- 
 ing with Heaven that he might retain a sense of his own 
 dependence. 
 
 "Further rebuke," he said, "would only serve to re- 
 vive the combative in your nature, and to render you 
 more aggressive. The thunders of Sinai could never 
 meet your case, but coals of fire are needed to burn away 
 the alloy which accrued from your contact with the 
 crowd. Into that crowd you stepped from the shelter 
 of your home to do battle with wrong in the cause of the 
 oppressed, but the very gratitude which acclaimed you 
 as deliverer proved your temptation and changed you 
 beyond recognition. In face of success it is impossible 
 to retain integrity without humility, and your fault lies 
 in your utter forgetfulness of the only power calculated
 
 244 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 to keep you lowly in spite of your triumphs. The real- 
 isation of your present outlook, compared to the stand- 
 ard with which you started, must bring with it a remorse 
 to which I have no desire to add, but, with ah 1 respect, I 
 would convey to you what you have lost in your so- 
 called gain. 
 
 "When I think of the weak you have abandoned, of 
 the words with which you have juggled, of the promises 
 which you never fulfilled, and of the needs which you 
 have used as steps whereby to mount to heights of your 
 own devising, I tremble that the public conscience should 
 be subject to the inconsistencies of its heroes. Not that 
 you do not love your nation, or ever loved it half so much 
 as now, when the possibility of proving it has been re- 
 moved from you. No one knows better than yourself 
 that what you require is withdrawal from the public 
 gaze. You must be unknown if your self-consciousness 
 is to be eradicated. The ills which have furnished you 
 with a subject for eloquence must be transferred from 
 the realm of theory to that of fact. You must sample 
 them on your own account, and for a while confine your- 
 self to dealing with the unit, if you are to become less glib 
 in the description of them and less airy in your pledges 
 as to their removal. To speak, even, of the public good 
 is a danger to you, but you must privately pay the price 
 of a sacrifice far more expensive than the verbiage in 
 which you have been too prolific. You must know ex- 
 perimentally what you knew only on paper, if you are to 
 approach the same high task without preaching to others 
 and yourself being cast away.
 
 THE PARTY POLITICIAN 245 
 
 "You need not despair, for you have been gifted with 
 rare material, and if there is no waste in nature, still less 
 is there any in the remodelling of character. You were 
 intended to lead and lead you shall, but it will be in 
 other directions than those into which you have been 
 diverted by the will o' the wisp of self, under the aspect 
 of glory. When you have been sufficiently trained, you 
 will resume your position at the head of your troops, but 
 amongst them there will be neither uniforms nor medals. 
 They will be mainly composed of the helpless, the dis- 
 enfranchised, and the downtrodden, so that you will be 
 jeered at for the rabble behind you. You shall become 
 enamoured of forlorn hopes, though you will cease to 
 use the word when engaged on the thing itself. 
 
 "Tired you may be, worn out, and in all probability 
 despised; but the only honours you then shall covet 
 will be the lines on your face and the scars which you 
 shall undoubtedly receive. Once more you shall be 
 thrilled at the story of a disappearance by which Rome 
 was saved from her enemies, and you shall gain some- 
 thing more than admiration for a Man Who knew no 
 party compared to His country, which for Him em- 
 braced the world. Few characters shall touch such a 
 height of joy when the Cross is no longer amongst your 
 'properties' but has become your own property."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 LA CROUPIERE 
 
 A MODERN type appeared in the dock. She was 
 preternaturally calm, and it was a question 
 whether she was alive or not, being in perfect 
 health. Never had there been such an instance of suc- 
 cessful unreality, but her effect was glacial, and the at- 
 traction she exercised recalled the legend of Medusa. 
 The cruelty of the lady was effectually disguised, and 
 there was nothing to prevent a stranger from regarding 
 her with unfeigned admiration. She represented the 
 last word in egoism, being uninterested in aught which 
 did not begin and end with herself. She created at first 
 the reverse impression, as if she were spoiling for a chance 
 of service. Though she might have been reckoned un- 
 usually passionate, truth to tell she was devoid of heart. 
 Her costume was perfect, no pains having been spared 
 to turn out a masterpiece of simplicity and seductiveness. 
 Her passive features showed no trace of anything so 
 underbred as emotion, though she could instantly put 
 into her eyes untold depths of feeling and tenderness. 
 She was a model of technical chastity, and led one to 
 believe oneself to be in the presence of a remarkably 
 clever woman, whom one would later have discovered 
 
 246
 
 LA CROUPIERE 247 
 
 to be extremely shallow. So little did she give herself 
 away that she might have been taken for an ingenue; 
 calculation, which was her forte, did not reveal itself. 
 It was hard to realise that she stood for one of the strong- 
 est, subtlest, and most dangerous products of dollarism, 
 and, though her species had no doubt existed since the 
 world began, it would seem to have been perfected by 
 the science of self-preservation. 
 
 "I rise," she said, with perfect aplomb, "to make not 
 so much a confession as a declaration, though I might 
 have felt an impulse towards the former, did I not re- 
 gard life as an affair in which each is bound never to 
 lose a point by admission of wrong. Frankly, I envy 
 the penitent and can imagine the relief experienced, but 
 from the time I started on my own I have posed for a 
 Virgin Mary, and the pleasure of evil has prospered in my 
 hands. To explain my mental condition is beyond me, 
 nor is there any object in discussing it. Unaided and 
 unprompted by any, I sat down as to a game of cards, 
 watching my chance until I had annexed most of the 
 tricks; I also saw that to succeed the player must inva- 
 riably keep cool, and that everything came to those who 
 waited. 
 
 "My origin may to a certain extent explain the spirit 
 which animated me. I belonged to a poor and large 
 family, and was born with the instinct of spending money, 
 which I set myself to acquire, being careless of any ob- 
 stacle that might stand in my way. Clearly the item 
 of a heart, being the chief hindrance to my design, had 
 to be dispensed with. I was consumed with jealousy as
 
 248 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 regards things objective, while the mere thought of 
 justice in a world which permitted such differences in for- 
 tune had always appeared to me a gross satire. I stud- 
 ied charm as one would study music, practising several 
 hours daily, until I became well known for my pro- 
 ficiency, but I bided my time and did nothing in a 
 hurry. 
 
 "I married enormous wealth, without caring a jot for 
 my husband, and went through the form of telling him 
 so, conscious that this would only irritate him into a de- 
 termination to compel me to care. Also my coldness 
 made him the keener, while I was fully aware that his 
 character was despicable, and that my living with him 
 would soon become a formality. Events justified the 
 plans I had laid, and I found myself in a position where 
 none could say me nay, but where I was not once tripped 
 up by the temptations which my detractors had prophe- 
 sied would be my ruin. Naturally I divorced my hus- 
 band, and, being rich and the innocent party, became 
 a subject for widespread sympathy. The standard I 
 adopted was a severe one, and I was looked up to as a 
 model of outraged virtue. I married again in due 
 course, informing my new choice, in nearly the same 
 terms I had used before, that love was impossible to me, 
 but that, having selected him for his probity and stand- 
 ing, I would consider the change of my name and the 
 adorning of his house with my presence, on condition 
 that no further liberties were allowed. He thought this 
 an immense honour and went to any lengths in his wor- 
 ship, until I yielded and became mistress not only of a
 
 LA CROUPIRE 249 
 
 social, but of an exclusive and intellectual world pre- 
 cisely to my taste. 
 
 "The wheels were perfectly oiled, and there was no 
 question of love, while I had obtained two fortunes 
 without having felt one spark of the divine passion. 
 My secret was to give nothing, but I headed charity 
 lists, and arranged my religion on highly organised busi- 
 ness lines. I surrounded myself with men and women 
 on the score of their notoriety, thus gaining the reputa- 
 tion of a collector of successes, each of whom believed 
 that his or her speciality was the only subject which 
 appealed to me. Undeniably such a career supplied 
 enchantment for an epicure, yet I was careful to avoid 
 any hint of excessive display, save on rare occasions, 
 when the brilliance of the scene warranted a contrast to 
 my normal Quakerism. I knew enough philosophy to 
 avoid over-indulgence in any direction, but prolonged 
 the sensation of my delights by moderation. Thus I 
 left the impression of a pietist who was also a patroness 
 of the arts, and whose mystery was increased by the in- 
 terest she took in all new movements in the field of spec- 
 ulation. 
 
 "It did not occur to me that I was sinning, in fact 
 the word never bothered me, and among my friends I 
 numbered many who adored me, while my servants 
 looked on me as a being from another world. I was great 
 at the use of superlatives, but could become frigid 
 instanter, knowing exactly when not to answer a letter 
 and when to express myself in redundant language. 
 I am conscious that men have suffered through my fas-
 
 250 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 cination, nor did I care how long the train of victims 
 became, but I admit, without subterfuge, that unless I 
 could call forth homage it was a dies non for me. I bat- 
 tened on adulation, which had become my prime necessity. 
 "There is not much more to tell, for it would all be in 
 the same strain, but it may interest you to know that I 
 was personally pure as snow, and that in my inner circle 
 were those conspicuous for eloquence or holiness, their 
 claim on me consisting in the fact that they were con- 
 spicuous. If you ask whether, in the process, I grew 
 fond of any, my answer is, No more than of my lap-dog, 
 which I would have replaced at a moment's notice. This 
 recital is doubtless by no means pleasant hearing, but it 
 would be wrong to conclude that I have not done my 
 part in making the world passable. True that I took 
 money from a beast, and from another who received no 
 return, but I spent it better than they would have done, 
 and my principle was to buy off the disagreeable and 
 order fresh flowers every day. I cannot recall losing 
 my temper, for I always had my own way, and it would 
 be hard to bring a single witness to testify that I had 
 given them anything but pleasure not that I claim 
 it as a virtue, for I detested ugliness with all the force 
 of my being. Having developed the genius of pretend- 
 ing, I smoothed away the roughness not only in my own 
 path but in that of hundreds, so that I can imagine no 
 better scheme on which to pass a pilgrimage which, 
 otherwise, would have been for me unbearable, and, with 
 due deference to the supposed Arbiter of our destiny, 
 one big mistake."
 
 LA CROUPlfiRE 251 
 
 It was not easy to associate the thought of an advo- 
 cate with the prisoner, but he was less disturbed than 
 at first seemed probable. He, too, differed from his 
 confreres, and gave the same sense of a new world, out- 
 side the struggles of conscience or the dilemmas of 
 honour. In sensibility there are as many varieties as in 
 climate, so it was not surprising if his arguments were 
 unusually incisive and frigid for a member of his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 "One holding your Lordship's office, and with an at- 
 mosphere all your own, must find it difficult," he said, 
 "to enter into the position of the accused. Her view- 
 point is radically different from yours, so that she stands 
 at a disadvantage. Her absence of contrition has its 
 good side, for, at any rate, there is nothing sentimental 
 about her strict adherence to facts, and she has accu- 
 rately described the situation. She can hardly be called 
 a hypocrite, because she has shown her hand, and the 
 supreme puzzle presented by her case is that she never 
 conveyed the notion of badness, or tempted any to 
 actual wrong. That she was refined, eminently spir- 
 ituelle, scrupulously clean, and always ornamental, no 
 one can gainsay; yet it is impossible to deny that her 
 selfishness was sublime. 
 
 "I confess to having constantly been enthralled by her, 
 and seldom left her without a grave doubt whether she 
 did not possess the qualities of a saint. Everything 
 about her contributed to idealism, and she was an enemy 
 of Satan in so far as she hated dirt and all that was re- 
 pugnant. Whatever the motives at the back of her
 
 252 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 philanthropy, I contend that she did it finely and that 
 the worship accorded her might have found a worse vent. 
 To be interesting is a benefaction, and to remain so a 
 triumph sometimes lacking among the pious. She al- 
 ways cheered, she always charmed, and she always 
 chased away hideous facts, which were forgotten in her 
 presence. She served as an incentive to nobler deeds 
 than she performed, and more than one sang better, 
 painted better, worked harder, and even climbed higher 
 because she sent them away enthused in the direction of 
 some great achievement. She was a living rebuke to 
 weakness, to hung-down heads or feeble knees, and what 
 she undertook she did so well that mere contact with her 
 made all wish to be first in their own line. 
 
 "As I look at your Lordship's face, I am aware that I 
 seem over-bold, but it is to the good that the accused 
 made the loafer heartily ashamed and determined to 
 become something of a lion, if only to get an entree into 
 her society. However she may have gained her sceptre, 
 she wielded it with dignity and acquired more power 
 within her limits than the average queen, who seldom 
 receives more than formal subservience. If she had a 
 passion, it was to 'make good,' and, if the epidemic 
 proved catching, the race is surely indebted to the germ 
 carrier. Were I asked whether her phases of piety were 
 genuine or aesthetic, I should say that, given the attain- 
 ment of her heart's desire, she preferred indulgence in 
 abstract religion to any other. Mental gymnastics were 
 for her caviare, and her strongest friendships were pla- 
 tonic, in which art I have never known her equal. It is
 
 LA CROUPIERE 253 
 
 not so much mercy that I crave for the accused as an ex- 
 planation for which I ask on her behalf, feeling assured 
 that, though you and she are poles asunder, the love 
 which dominates your decisions will come to the con- 
 clusion that the tragedy of her life lay in her conception 
 of it rather than in its execution." 
 
 The following colloquy took place between the Judge 
 and the prisoner: 
 
 "How did you, as a woman, find it possible to receive 
 money from men whom you did not respect, let alone 
 love?" 
 
 "I doubt if I was a 'woman,' which makes all the 
 difference." 
 
 "Were you troubled as to the way in which the money 
 was made, which you probably knew perfectly well?" 
 
 " I was more affected by the size than the source of the 
 fortune." 
 
 "Would you yourself have made it by the same means, 
 if it had been in your power? " 
 
 "Certainly not, as my good taste would have pre- 
 vented me, though I did not mind receiving it as a tribute 
 to my talents." 
 
 "Did you ever compare its value with that of honest 
 love, which you must have recognised as the foundation 
 of true happiness?" 
 
 "I did not hesitate as to the relative value of the two, 
 but regarded the latter as an illusion and an overrated 
 article." 
 
 "Then it was actually money for which you sold your 
 soul?"
 
 254 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "I look on it as begging the question to assume that I 
 had a soul to sell. What I needed and what I meant at 
 any cost to obtain was supremacy." 
 
 "I presume you realised that money in itself could 
 confer none? " 
 
 "That went without saying, but, given the capital to 
 exploit my charms, I knew that I possessed the attrac- 
 tions necessary to achieve the rest." 
 
 "How low would you have stooped in your enter- 
 prise?" 
 
 "I drew the line at lowliness and love-making, which 
 I considered to be among the vulgarities." 
 
 "How would you explain your interest in good when 
 you had gained what constituted your throne? " 
 
 "I found pleasure in the patronage which it afforded." 
 
 "What was your attitude towards God?" 
 
 "It served for the nearest thing to sensation of which 
 I was capable, so long as it was philosophic, but for some 
 reason the Gospels scared me, and I avoided reading them 
 as opposed to my plan of living." 
 
 "Wherein was the discrepancy most striking?" 
 
 "They were too tender for me, while I knew that if 
 any one with a brain were to fall under the spell of their 
 Hero, the only outcome would be to love and, loving, 
 to lose instead of finding one's life." 
 
 "Then, in spirit, you deliberately crucified Him 
 again?" 
 
 "It was a case of crucifying either Him or myself, 
 and I chose the former." 
 
 "And this caused you no remorse?"
 
 LA CROUPIERE 255 
 
 "On the contrary, this decision brought me all my 
 glory." 
 
 "What was the chief allurement which made it easy 
 for you to commit this moral murder?" 
 
 "I desired to be worshipped. If He or any one else 
 came in my way, they had to go to the wall, but I must 
 be worshipped." 
 
 "Was this longing always with you?" 
 
 "The appetite grew by eating, until the heavens 
 might have fallen, but I should have been undisturbed 
 so long as men, and women, too, for the matter of that, 
 knelt at my feet." 
 
 "Were you particular as to their quality?" 
 
 "I waxed more so as I became more artistic." 
 
 "Was your apparent concern with the affairs of others 
 fictitious or real? " 
 
 "More often the first, but the second in the case of 
 those who had won through to the top." 
 
 " Did you help many in their projects? " 
 
 "Only if I thought they were worth while, and if I was 
 sure of a quid pro quo in my association with them." 
 
 "What reason can you give, then, for your own fas- 
 tidiousness and for your shrinking from the bestial, which 
 made you a recognised censor of morals? " 
 
 "No other than that it pleased me, that I had no 
 desire to be confused with the common herd, and that I 
 hated nastiness of every description." 
 
 "And when you felt physical pain? " 
 
 "I made it as poetical as possible under the circum- 
 stances."
 
 256 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Was the pain less existent on that account?" 
 
 "If not, no one knew it; it was part of our cult to pre- 
 tend bravely, and at least it sounded superior." 
 
 "What effect on you had the misery of life and the un- 
 happiness which you must have constantly witnessed?" 
 
 "I rebelled against them and did my best to minimise 
 them." 
 
 "Do you consider that your projects succeeded?" 
 
 "Better than most, and on the whole I have nothing 
 to complain of." 
 
 "Would you return to the same existence if you had 
 the option? " 
 
 "Unquestionably yes, though with my present knowl- 
 edge I should arrange my affairs on a larger scale and 
 probably effect much more." 
 
 The Judge stopped the conversation abruptly, as 
 useless in face of such complacency. His expression 
 conveyed less anger than despair, for he looked on the 
 accused as one for whom punishment was meaningless, 
 because beyond the reach of feeling. He also understood 
 that any kindness on his part would but feed the vanity 
 of the subject, and the coldness of the Croupiere com- 
 municated itself to him, giving to his final remarks a 
 practical tone which was the only one she could under- 
 stand. 
 
 "Your case," he said, "presents unusual difficulties, 
 and I find my sense of judgment partially paralysed. 
 Your name exactly describes the deadliness of your deal- 
 ing with others, while you remained uncompromised 
 except by your earlier coups. I listened with close at-
 
 LA CROUPlfiRE 257 
 
 tention to your advocate's plea, but cannot endorse his 
 remarks. The achievements of your subsequent life 
 and the admiration you have called forth on account of 
 your cleanness and your charity are of no value to me, 
 since I am more interested in the why of actions than in 
 the actions themselves. I regret to tell you that your 
 underlying purpose has cancelled your high talking, and 
 that your standing is that of an astute thief. Your vir- 
 tue, which passed for chastity, was by no means due to 
 your morals, but to your lack of generosity. It would 
 have been less immoral to fulfil a bargain than to counter- 
 feit contempt of the natural, which none knew better 
 than yourself was involved in the signing of the contract. 
 For this reason Circe and the courtesan are models 
 compared to you, though in the social world, which is 
 blinded by gold dust, you preserved to the last a repu- 
 tation that avails you nothing in this place. 
 
 "Your conduct was as selfish, hard-hearted, and re-, 
 pellent as can be imagined, nor should I use such words 
 if it had not been deliberate from first to last. You were 
 guilty of a capital crime in the slaying of love, who is the 
 only king, not because your nature made you a rebel, 
 but because you had either to commit the crime or to 
 share the sufferings which made him royal. This was 
 bad enough, but, having killed him, you stripped him of 
 his garments and wore them for your own, parading 
 before a public all too ready to use you as an excuse for 
 mild imitation conducted on less wicked lines. 
 
 "If you can enter into anything outside yourself, you 
 will see that nothing more pernicious can happen to a
 
 258 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 woman than to elect to trample on the heart, coupled 
 with the use of feminine attractions which only excess of 
 heart can palliate. The sphere of your influence had 
 hardly any limit, and has done much, even in the re- 
 ligious world, to evolve a type which expatiates on its 
 promises but regards its penalties as a myth. It has 
 been instrumental in establishing what is known as ' the 
 marriage market,' and in producing among the young 
 those who excite to the point of surrender, without 
 losing their heads for an instant, until they have secured 
 a ring and its attendant advantages. 
 
 "The semblance of good which was the chief weapon 
 in your armoury is now being commonly adopted by the 
 lowest and most vulgar, who thereby entrap the un- 
 wary, and, what is worse, the devotional, into thinking 
 that they have found an object for their chivalrous 
 abandonment. This is the more painful because when a 
 woman begins to know the value of gold, she begins to lose 
 her sex, and if she continues in such a course her punish- 
 ment is that she becomes petrified. Without failing to 
 note the value of your refinement and your indifference 
 to pain, I would impress on you that you can no more 
 know the first without the second than alloy can be got 
 rid of without fire. Hence I have denounced what to my 
 thinking is more virulent atheism than that of many who 
 are driven to deny God through an impotent sympathy 
 with their fellow men. Yours creates an abomination 
 of desolation that spoils your age and results in a cyni- 
 cism calling for pitiless retribution. 
 
 "Nothing remains for you except that you be driven
 
 LA CROUPlfiRE 259 
 
 from among men, that you have the heart of a beast 
 given you for a while, which, though regrettable, is 
 better than that of a stone; that you be deposed from 
 your state, that your glory be taken from you, and that 
 you be avoided by all as belonging to a lower creation, 
 until the time comes when you lift up your eyes to heaven, 
 when your understanding returns to you, and you dis- 
 cover that you are nothing. Then, but not till then, 
 you will commence to be something, and you shall be 
 found weeping bitterly, but the tears shall bring about 
 your salvation in making of you a woman. 
 
 " Gradually your heart shall be reborn, and you shall 
 eventuate the opposite of your present. Without any 
 unnecessary relapse into the lower side, you shall bow 
 your head to the only way, which God knew best when 
 He made the world. You shall find that, whatever the 
 direction of your days, which shall be arranged by your 
 temperament, your chief characteristic shall be that of 
 giving and then of retirement. Be content. After the 
 transformation which I have sketched out, you will be 
 enabled to help your family for the first time namely, 
 by the silence of your sacrifice."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 
 
 HIS face was ashen pale, but its pallor increased as 
 the Judge recalled some one he had seen before. 
 The hopelessness of his expression outvied that 
 of all who had preceded him, so that none, compared 
 to him, deserved the term desperate. He was as one 
 who could not be comforted, to whom pity would be 
 the extreme of torment. Whatever evil he had been 
 guilty of had been before Heaven, and his agony was 
 that of the soul. This rendered it the more poignant, 
 and it was intensified by the figure before him, whom he 
 feared by reason of his mercy. He was the most earnest 
 person who had stood in the dock, and he more than ap- 
 preciated the crisis; for some time, in fact, he had been 
 rehearsing it. Nothing counted for him save one face, 
 so that the Court was reduced to a dialogue. The 
 loneliness of the man was horrible, suggestive of the 
 second death, which alone could describe his misery. 
 The impression which he gave was that of a saint in 
 purgatory. He gazed neither to the right nor to the left, 
 but through the face before him into space; and as yet 
 no consolation came to him from the void. 
 The exhibition of a man judging himself before his own 
 
 260
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 261 
 
 verdict was the more painful as none seemed able to 
 prevent or alleviate it, and the tension produced was 
 similar to that which occurs before the black cap is as- 
 sumed. The self-accused became great through its very 
 realism, but, after a while, there stole into those haunted 
 eyes a look of gladness to think that the time of atoning 
 had come. He rose to make his confession with the air 
 of one who had heard several made to himself, and spoke 
 with a reverence and humility to which he had long been 
 accustomed. No one would have doubted but that 
 religion was the atmosphere of his being, and the stings 
 of remorse were felt, rather than expressed, in his words. 
 
 "I rise," he said, "not so much to explain, seeing that 
 you know my heart, as to condemn myself. I should 
 merely plead guilty, if I did not hope that, by making 
 acknowledgment of my offence, I might save others from 
 coming to the same place. What I have done is to sell 
 my best friend, nor did I arrive at the bargain save by 
 degrees. The circumstances of my birth were all in my 
 favour, and the teaching which I received was perfect. 
 If there was any fault to find, it was that I professed 
 too early what I had later to learn for myself. I had 
 breathed goodness ever since I can remember, so that I 
 thought it was my own by right, and became an adept 
 in the use of phrases implying experiences as yet un- 
 known. 
 
 "Mercifully, as it proved, I fell away for a time and 
 had to discover on my own account the power of sin, 
 from which I had persuaded myself I was immune. I had 
 an ideal whose life spelt communion with God, so much
 
 262 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 so that, being unable to credit her with struggles, I 
 thought to start where she had arrived, being ignorant of 
 the pain at the back of her piety. She passed, and the 
 penalty of my backsliding was proportioned to my mem- 
 ory of her. Little did I realise how between heavenly 
 and human love there was but the breadth of a hair. 
 The stream, when it began to flow, became a torrent, 
 having been dammed for years, and I found myself in 
 the slough of despond. 
 
 "It was then I met the friend of my ideal and that he 
 became my own. There are few enough who know the 
 meaning of Love, but my friend personified it. None so 
 well as he was fitted to heal one who was at the same 
 time both holy and its converse, but as his arms were al- 
 ways outstretched, the breadth of it allowed for both, 
 till the last should die away. Not one word of rebuke 
 escaped him, not even the hint of patronage, but, taking 
 the good for granted and the evil as non-existent, he 
 drew me to his heart, stayed in my house, and asked 
 me to his board. For keeping such company he was 
 upbraided, and reports arose that he connived at my 
 transgressions, but he was so occupied with the music 
 of the angels that he did not hear these jarring notes. 
 The wonder of his kindness was in its continuance, 
 and, though the paradox in me was persistent, his con- 
 duct never changed. 
 
 "The power of human priesthoods is apt to wane and 
 finally to disappear, but that of my friend, who held no 
 office, remained, being exercised in one prolonged bene- 
 diction. Gradually I grew to be fond of him, so fond
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 263 
 
 that, apart from him, I had no identity of my own. He 
 soaked me with himself, and, whatever virtue or pity 
 or zeal for salvage appeared in me, I knew it was not I, 
 but my friend within me. The happiness of those days 
 was indescribable, and, however dark the present gloom, 
 nothing can rob me of their brightness. He had many 
 others to whom he meant the same, being everything to 
 each and regulating his favours as their faults made them 
 need him. What he was or who he was does not matter, 
 but I knew what he was and who he was to me. The joy 
 of it again became my snare, as had happened to me in 
 the case of my ideal, who was for me his under-study. I 
 forgot to watch, and I ceased to pray, being content with 
 his company. 
 
 "Then there came to me an angel of light by whom I 
 was taken unawares, till he had instilled the poison of his 
 words into my inmost soul. With the subtlety of a 
 master in the science, he pointed out to me that my 
 friend was too simple to succeed in saving the world, also 
 that he was too far remote from touch to affect aught but 
 a few among mortals. He insinuated that my friend 
 led to building castles in Spain and to schemes which were 
 bound to fail; that there was not sufficient discipline 
 in his methods, and that he forgave too easily; that, in 
 spite of his kindness, he would never exercise power un- 
 less he occupied an earthly throne and appealed to the 
 imagination by evidence of authority other than that of 
 washing feet. He went far to prove the beauty of a 
 domination, with the appanage of a court, without neg- 
 lecting the spirit of my friend's example, in spite of its
 
 264 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 grandeur. The angel of light was careful to explain to 
 me that, though my friend had discovered a patent, it 
 remained for others to turn it to commercial ends, which 
 was necessary if it was not to lapse. When this system 
 had been perfected, using the name of the patentee, the 
 whole world, in place of a remnant, would be supplied 
 with salvation without undue inconvenience. The cli- 
 max would be reached with my friend's coronation and 
 the adoration of mankind. 
 
 "The notion appeared to me sublime, and to one who 
 had failed before the temptation of touch this appeal to 
 objectivism proved irresistible. I may add that, in- 
 cluded in the proposition was my own promotion, not so 
 much in externals as in popular esteem, to be used, from 
 first to last, in the cause of my friend. He promised me 
 perceptibly less risk for my morals and a perfect machine 
 for the exercise of my good works. By such means I 
 should gain the ear of the high ones of the earth, until 
 I occupied a place hardly second to them, remaining 
 humble in private through the teaching of my friend. 
 I saw the business in it and I succumbed. Before 
 me floated a vision of the world swayed by a force 
 which should be genuinely catholic, till I began to 
 wonder how my friend could have gloried in being a 
 fool. 
 
 "When the tempter saw I was in his toils, he naively 
 added that to bring this about a small price had to be 
 paid, and that price was merely to sell my friend. When 
 I demurred, he said that my friend had a penchant for 
 pain, and that the base of his philosophy was the shed-
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 265 
 
 ding of his blood. Deftly weaving his snares, this devil 
 drew me on by persuasion that history was not recurrent, 
 that no harm could accrue to my friend, and that the 
 transaction between me and himself with closed doors 
 was but a formality. The scales were turned when he 
 touched on my increased power for good in the new 
 regime, and, before I knew it, the bond was sealed. I 
 had sold my friend, just as literally as did my prototype 
 from Kerioth centuries ago. 
 
 "Then came a moment of reaction such as only the 
 gods can solve. My friend, from whom nothing was hid, 
 gave me one last chance. He collected us together, and 
 his sadness told me that he felt the future, as well as 
 grappled with the present. He even showed me special 
 deference, but, when I left the room, he pleaded with 
 the least tinge of satire for no delay, though so courteous 
 was he to the last that he allowed it to be mistaken for 
 my share in his affairs. The rest easily followed after 
 I had dared to break bread with my friend, though I 
 knew him conscious of my design. To betray him was 
 not difficult, for I knew his habits, and also that, though 
 he might invoke countless hosts on his behalf, so meek 
 was he that he would prove a ready victim. Soon 
 enough, as aforetime, he was crowned, though it was 
 holden from me that he was never more a king than 
 when he bowed his head. My friend was killed, and to 
 me was given the price, with the curt remark that, so 
 far as my feelings were concerned, that was my affair. 
 It was I who murdered him, and it was I who loved 
 him. Do with me what you will."
 
 2 66 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 The advocate was silent. 
 
 "Tell me," said the Judge, "to what do you attribute 
 your treachery?" 
 
 "To a force wholly beyond me." 
 
 "Did your friend ever warn you that this force was 
 abroad?" 
 
 "He often warned me." 
 
 "What made you join the band of which he was the 
 chief?" 
 
 "Nothing short of it could satisfy me after having 
 known him through my ideal, and then for myself." 
 
 "Did you do him good service during that halcyon 
 
 time?" 
 
 "Yes, but it was a dangerous one, being concerned 
 more with things than with souls." 
 
 "What was your special charge?" 
 
 "We had to collect enough to live on, until our daily 
 needs obsessed me, and it seemed that we should have 
 to break up unless our organisation was perfect." 
 
 "How did the company which gathered round your 
 friend get on together?" 
 
 "When he was present, well; but when he was absent 
 the passion for precedence set in." 
 
 "How was this possible in face of his teaching?" 
 
 "We did not apply it." 
 
 "How was it that his words produced their effect?" 
 
 "He spoke like no other man." 
 
 "What sort of following did he gain?" 
 
 "The common people heard him gladly." 
 
 "For whom did he care most?"
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 267 
 
 "For the riffraff." 
 
 "Was he ever angry?" 
 
 "Very seldom." 
 
 "How did he deal with the fallen?" 
 
 "He raised them." 
 
 "How with the blind?" 
 
 "He opened their eyes." 
 
 "How with the dumb?" 
 
 "He caused them to speak." 
 
 "How with the lepers?" 
 
 "He cleansed them." 
 
 "How with an adulteress?" 
 
 "He honoured her." 
 
 "How with the rich?" 
 
 "He pitied them." 
 
 "How with the Pharisees?" 
 
 "He flayed them." 
 
 "How with his accusers?" 
 
 "He was silent." 
 
 "Where is your friend now?" 
 
 "Everywhere." 
 
 "Have you been to others to get relief since the night 
 when it was dark?" 
 
 "To more than one." 
 
 "What was their treatment?" 
 
 "Some advised that I should be handed over to Satan 
 for the destruction of the flesh, that my spirit might 
 eventually be saved." 
 
 "Who first said that?" 
 
 "One who called himself the chief of sinners."
 
 268 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 "Surely he must have forgotten the clothes which were 
 cast at his feet." 
 
 "I have since thought so, and that is why they could 
 not help me." 
 
 "Did you go to others?" 
 
 "They hinted at over-sensitiveness, and that I might 
 still make it up to my friend by publishing his name." 
 
 "And others?" 
 
 "They were so occupied with preparing stained-glass 
 windows to perpetuate my friend's memory that they 
 paid me no attention." 
 
 "And others?" 
 
 "Their whole time was taken up with reconstructing 
 the form which my friend came to abolish." 
 
 "And others?" 
 
 "They were quarrelling among themselves as to what 
 my friend meant, so they did not hear my cry." 
 
 "How was it that for the most part none could con- 
 sole you?" 
 
 "Few were as bad as I, with my knowledge, had been, 
 so they could not understand." 
 
 "Why did you not work out your own sorrow?" 
 
 "It was not godly sorrow." 
 
 "Did the world forgive you?" 
 
 "They greeted me as a recruit, but I could not forgive 
 myself." 
 
 "Did you not know that your friend would have 
 forgiven you?" 
 
 "That was the agony of it, but I had to hear it from 
 his own lips."
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 269 
 
 "And your sorrow now?" 
 
 "I know nothing save that I have sold my friend." 
 
 "What have you done with the reward of your treach- 
 ery?" 
 
 "It became as Dead Sea fruit to my taste." 
 
 "Would you serve your friend again if you had an- 
 other chance?" 
 
 "I am not worthy." 
 
 "Do you believe now in the vision which was brought 
 before your eyes?" 
 
 "I know that it was a mirage." 
 
 "What force, in your opinion, can alone save the 
 world?" 
 
 "My friend." 
 
 "But if he was killed?" 
 
 "He can never die." 
 
 "But in hell, which he came to destroy?" 
 
 "He is felt there more vividly than anywhere else." 
 
 "Would you say that you were there now?" 
 
 "I am, and I am not." 
 
 "Are you content to go back there?" 
 
 "I am indifferent, so long as I can see my friend." 
 
 "Have you anything more to say on your own be- 
 half?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 The face of the Judge was drawn but radiant, and he 
 was glad to see once more features which were familiar. 
 Down his cheeks coursed tears as the truth became 
 patent that each act of simplicity invites one of subtlety, 
 and that Judas is a shadow cast by the light of Jesus.
 
 270 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 Every thought was lost in that of winning back the 
 Traitor to what he used to be, and what he really was. 
 He caught at even the act of his friend in entrusting 
 the accused with the source of sustenance as at a straw, 
 and resolved to save this man from the depths of the 
 sea. 
 
 "Before I pronounce your sentence, I wish to wel- 
 come you home again, and to thank you for the work you 
 did before you sold your friend, that I find placed to your 
 credit. I cannot say whether I rightly understand the 
 meanderings of your mind through which all this came 
 about, but I know that I love you. Also I know that, 
 though at the last every ray was obscured, the sunset 
 is not the day. It is not for me to adopt the role of the 
 inquisitor or to keep you on the rack; only men do that. 
 My province is rather to forgive all from the moment 
 they love again, whether it take a day or a thousand 
 years. It is sufficient for the purposes of this Court 
 that the best be awakened, after which the prisoners 
 pass beyond the jurisdiction of the Judge, whose office 
 is to bind them back to God. 
 
 "I know, without your telling me, that your fear of 
 those who love your friend is greater than that which 
 you feel as regards your friend himself. All in good 
 time they will learn that no man has a right to judge, 
 and that, though you did a deadly wrong, they also 
 caused him no small grief. They, too, were ashamed 
 of him; when it came to his trial they could not afford 
 to know him and, without exception, forsook him and 
 fled. Any hurt which was done in loyalty of zeal was
 
 THE TRAITOR 1915 A. D. 271 
 
 healed by your friend himself, so they may be comforted 
 at the thought of a mercy which is everlasting. Some 
 day to these companions you shall be reunited, when 
 they shall have foregone all precedence and have be- 
 come like the little children whom your friend used to 
 take up in his arms and bless. 
 
 "They shall find in your friend's new kingdom many 
 another band, as yet unknown to them, whom he loves 
 though they call him by another name. It will be as 
 though there was one flock and your friend will be the 
 shepherd of them all. Many of those who professed 
 devotion to your friend, but nothing more, will also be 
 there, when they, too, shall have got to know him, but 
 at the time they knew not what they did. There shall 
 be no need of food there, for they shall feed on your 
 friend and be satisfied. The light shall cast no shadow 
 there, for it shall be in mid-heaven, and its brightness 
 will come from your friend's face. The danger of ob- 
 jectivism shall be unknown there, where the spirit shall 
 be supreme, and the need of organisation shall cease 
 to exist where Love impels all. It shall there be found 
 that the saints were those who made a covenant with 
 God with sacrifice, whether at the eleventh hour, or at 
 the dawning of their day. All the other prisoners who 
 were broken on the wheel shall be there, and each shall 
 be employed as best suits the being given to them at 
 their birth, and mended by their martyrdom before their 
 arrival. 
 
 "The tempter's lie was a half truth, which is the worst 
 of all, when he said that your friend was destined to
 
 272 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 reign. Of the area or fabric of his dominion either he 
 had no conception, or he so feared it that he suborned 
 the servants of your friend to proclaim it as natural and 
 denned. You said your friend was everywhere, but 
 there will come a time when he, too, will retire in favour 
 of God Himself, who is all in all, but whose Love is such 
 that for a little while He became your friend, the better 
 to make His glory bearable, and to prepare you for 
 eternity in His presence. 
 
 "You may think I have forgotten your sentence, but 
 you have served most of it in the hell through which 
 you have already passed. In that new kingdom that 
 you did your best to frustrate, you shall no longer keep 
 the bag, but, till you learn to prefer the lowest place, 
 you shall keep the door. The penalty of seeing your 
 ideal but afar off, and of being debarred from the active 
 business of the King, will meet the case of him who sold 
 his saviour. When patience shall have had her perfect 
 work, and when you shall want nothing, you shall be 
 summoned by your friend. Full opportunity shall be 
 given you of repaying the thirty pieces of silver with 
 more than compound interest. It still remains for 
 you to undergo a greater punishment than has yet been 
 meted out to any. Come hither and receive it." 
 
 The prisoner, by this time livid but triumphant, ap- 
 proached the chair and knelt down. The Judge kissed 
 the Traitor.
 
 ENVOI 
 
 IT IS a relief when the Court has risen and the work 
 of the day is done. The kindest Magistrate must 
 be glad to forget the sadness and dilemmas with 
 which he has been dealing, but the best of them arrive at 
 the conclusion that they have had to do rather with 
 invalids than with the designedly bad. To many, doubt- 
 less, it must partake of a routine, or the strain would 
 be unbearable; but their faces tell of a sympathy they 
 cannot disguise, and their whole being becomes suffused 
 with a pitifulness unknown to ordinary men. It is a trib- 
 ute to our advance in humaneness that this type should 
 have become so taken for granted that the reverse is 
 exceptional, and it is refreshing to find that the poor 
 resort to them for advice in practical affairs as much as 
 if not more than to the parson. The parable speaks 
 for itself, to the effect that any one who looks into his 
 own nature must feel his brotherhood with all who have 
 been found out. The sense of contempt, or even of 
 distance between the discovered and the undiscovered, 
 is disappearing, and, in its place, there is a general ad- 
 mission that the germ of the same tendencies exists in 
 all. Certainly public opinion is vastly more considerate 
 than it used to be, and, however gloomy the view taken 
 by pessimists, every thinking person must be convinced 
 
 273
 
 274 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 that the fellowship of man is being better understood. 
 
 On the other hand, with this advance in charity and 
 in the recognition of the oneness of life, there is an un- 
 deniable danger to the laws of logic. Some would go 
 so far as to say that the loss of hell fire has grave dis- 
 advantages, and it is a question if, in ceasing to be 
 frightened of God, the race is not inclined to doubt His 
 existence. As usual, the truth will be found midway, 
 and it were wise, while abandoning doctrines at the 
 thought of which we shudder, to keep a firm hold on 
 the need of chastening, for which we learn to bless God 
 more than for His favours. No greater fallacy can ob- 
 tain than that judgment is avoidable, and the philosophy 
 to which we are coming aims at a combination of Love 
 and Truth. Some day we shall find that they are the 
 same word, while, in the scenes depicted, we have wit- 
 nessed them to perfection in the Judge. He, at least, 
 is not subject to the claims either of fatigue or formality, 
 and it is good to know that we have to do with a power 
 which has been translated for mortals in the person of a 
 Brother. The whole affair is deprived of melancholy, 
 for, without burking facts, the impression left is one of 
 limitless hope and of thankfulness at the methods por- 
 trayed. 
 
 The habit of slurring over what offends the taste is 
 akin to that of hiding a coffin under flowers, and the 
 brave man will prefer to have it out, not only with him- 
 self, but with the evils of his day. If the good are the 
 salt of the earth, it becomes their vocation to be sprinkled 
 among the weeds, and a protest may be allowed at the
 
 ENVOI 275 
 
 prevailing inclination to "cellars, " which may adorn the 
 table and improve the food of a few. The excuse may 
 be alleged that the salt is apt to lose its pungency and 
 to become fitter for the dunghill unless the atoms are 
 constantly collected to regain their savour, but no one 
 can deny that the accepted theory of virtue is too often 
 associated with cowardice. The contention of the author 
 is that the officially religious are almost entirely uncon- 
 cerned with the issues of daily existence, and that, until the 
 godlike of the race dare to live in the world without being 
 of it, no reformation on a large scale can be expected. 
 
 Let it be conceded that there is as much risk in the 
 rescue of a soul as in that of a drowning man, and the 
 majority will at once own that few of them have ever 
 jumped overboard. To do so without being an ex- 
 pert swimmer would be the act of a lunatic, and, even 
 when in the water, their prowess would often fail them 
 unless they carried with them a life-buoy. It goes 
 without saying that the heroes who descend into a mine 
 to save their comrades not only hold their lives in their 
 hands, but, when they are brought up in the cage, bear 
 traces of their venture underground. No result would 
 have been achieved, however, if they had remained on 
 the top and preserved their appearance at the expense 
 of the dead. 
 
 The foregoing attempt to bring scenes which are going 
 on every day at our very doors, before the best and the 
 most sympathetic, is a challenge to those who, either 
 through ignorance or timidity, affect indifference. The 
 Judge was by no means exclusive, and, if he had lived in
 
 276 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 a glass case, would never have been the prisoners' friend. 
 That it may involve being called names and that stones 
 may easily be thrown is natural, but the crown of our 
 Faith is that it culminates in One who was not only holy 
 but fraternal. 
 
 Let there be no misunderstanding as to the separation 
 necessary for those who would not degenerate, but the 
 entire notion of being set apart for the highest purposes 
 is defeated by the idealist who forgets that the value of 
 such carefulness is his better equipment to help his gen- 
 eration. That generation is made up of millions to 
 whom the thought of inspiration is a dead letter which 
 it is his business to quicken. The patience and reck- 
 lessness requisite speak for themselves ; and, though it is 
 eminently necessary for him to be armed, cui bono if he 
 does not enter the conflict? 
 
 The object of this book is to leave the reader impressed 
 with the duty which he owes to his brother man, without 
 for one moment underrating the dangers which threaten 
 association with the world. It will have done some- 
 thing if it serves to break down the barriers of prejudice, 
 and to dissipate the gloom which, at times, hangs over 
 goodness like a pall. It is not advisable that the un- 
 initiated should have their eyes opened without con- 
 summate care, or undertake burdens until they are 
 ready to bear them, but no character can be rightly 
 called "religious" until he has grasped the root meaning 
 of the term, which is the rejoining of all and every to 
 the Source of their being. To accomplish this he must 
 cease to talk of flowers, or, at least, he must remember
 
 ENVOI 277 
 
 that thornless roses are freaks in horticulture. In a 
 word, there is no lack of anguish or of sin, but the art 
 of life is to take a leaf from the Judge's book, to face 
 the same and woo its victims back to their best, instead 
 of dragooning them into despair, or leaving them to 
 perish by the way. 
 
 The interest of the trials is chiefly to be found in their 
 outcome, and the gist of the proceedings lies in the reme- 
 dies suggested by the Judge. Naturally the metaphors 
 cannot be too closely analysed, and full play must be 
 allowed for a poet's fancies, but it is sufficient if the 
 truth be brought home that every reader has his chance, 
 here and now, of repairing the past. The whole scheme 
 would fail if such a hope were merely a pious opinion, 
 but the writer holds it to be profoundly true that every 
 human quality contains the elements of its opposite. 
 Godly revenge is denied to none, and no greatness has 
 ever been achieved save through some correction. 
 Again and again we require to be broken up if we are 
 to be mended, but before the process can take place, the 
 glass must be held up to us and we must see ourselves. 
 After that, given such a friend as presided over the 
 Court, no one on earth need fail, but until each does 
 battle with his besetment, nothing has happened, just 
 as if one suffering from cancer were to hide the fact, 
 but to take every means as regards his health in all 
 other particulars. Happy beyond words must the pris- 
 oner be who, after exposing his shame, or having had 
 it exposed, finds in the Judge both surgeon and physician, 
 who never lost a patient and never took a fee.
 
 278 THE GRAND ASSIZE 
 
 The humour which obtains, even in the dock, is no 
 mere effort to adopt a lighter side from an artistic stand- 
 point, since, fortunately, laughter plays its part in our 
 passage through the world. Without humour madness 
 would be the rule and not the exception, and there are 
 plenty of people, hardly to be ranked among the pious, 
 to whom great gratitude is due for having added to the 
 general gladness. Bad times we may and ought to 
 have, but there is a vast amount of happiness, and some- 
 thing is wrong if fun is not to the fore. Our friend with 
 the cancer has a better chance of surviving if, what- 
 ever he may have to endure, he maintains his cheerful- 
 ness. When oil and wine were poured into the wounds 
 of the poor fellow in the ditch, the first no doubt was 
 intended to soothe, and the second to make him smile. 
 There is a deal of human nature in everybody; and, if 
 the choice arose between a good doctor with bad spirits 
 and a bad doctor with good spirits, many would select 
 the latter, and would quite likely prove to be wise. 
 
 The sequence preserved in the cases recorded is not 
 accidental. When the Great Teacher reduced the mys- 
 tery of conversion to being born again, He implied that 
 the most accurate term would have been reversion to 
 that from which each started. The effort of the Judge 
 was, in nearly every instance, to recall the magic of 
 earlier years, for which reason he was insistent in his 
 references to home. It would appear that to become 
 healed is a simpler process than is often taught, and that, 
 without losing ourselves in the intricacies of theology, 
 we should humbly strive once more to occupy the
 
 ENVOI 279 
 
 nursery. There is little difference between the prisoners, 
 though their settings vary, but the prevalence of ego, 
 whatever direction it took, accounts for their leaving 
 the high road. That the temptations of each are so 
 different that what is poison to one may be meat to 
 another is shown on every page, but the conclusion from 
 which no one can escape is that the lips of each must, 
 sooner or later, formulate the word " Peccavi," after 
 which, and only after which, the Judge closes the affair 
 with the answer, "Pax lecum." 
 
 THE END
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
 
 A 000037150 o