Great and wonderful is the power of Enthusiasm. You see, it matters nothing--nothing in the world--what a man has to preach and teach--whether he advocates Obi, or telepathy, or rapping, or spirits who hide teacups in coat pockets--it matters nothing that there is neither common sense nor evidence, nor common reason to back him: if he only possess the magnetic power, he will create a following: he will have disciples who will follow him to the death. What is it--this power?
It makes the orator, the poet, the painter, the novelist, the dramatist: it makes the leader of men: it made the first King, the first Priest, the first Conqueror.
"Come," said Mr. Edmund Gray; "the time pa.s.ses. I must take you to my Place."
They walked out together, Master and Scholar. The man who was mad walked carelessly and buoyantly, his coat flying open, one hand in his pocket, the other brandishing his walking-stick, his head thrown back, his face full of light, and, though his words were sometimes strong, always full of kindness. Now the sane man, the man of Lincoln"s Inn, wore his coat tightly b.u.t.toned, walked with a firm precise step, looked straight before him, and showed the face of one wholly occupied with his own thoughts. There was a man who was mad and a man who was sane: and certainly the madman was the more interesting of the two.
"This place," said the Master, meaning Gray"s Inn, "is entirely filled with those who live by and for the defence of Property. They absorb and devour a vast portion of it while they defend it. No one, you see, defends it unless he is paid for it. Your country, your family, your honour--you will defend for nothing; but not another man"s Property--no.
For that you must be paid. Every year it becomes more necessary to defend Property; every year the hordes of mercenaries increase. Here they are lawyers and lawyers" clerks--a vast mult.i.tude. Outside there are agents, brokers, insurers, financiers--I know not what--all defending Property. They produce nothing, these armies: they take their toll: they devour a part of what other people have produced before they hand on the residue to the man who says it is his Property."
"Oh!"--but Elsie did not say this aloud--"if these words could only be heard in Lincoln"s Inn! If they could be repeated to a certain lawyer."
From time to time she looked at him curiously. How if he should suddenly return to his senses? What would he think? How should she explain? "Mr.
Dering, you have been off your head. You have been talking the most blasphemous things about Property. You would never believe that even in madness you could say such things." No; he never would believe it--never. He could not believe it. What if his brother, Sir Samuel, were to hear those words? Meantime, the Apostle walked along unconscious, filled with his great Mission. Oh, heavens! that Mr.
Dering--Mr. Dering--should believe he had a Mission!
The Master stopped a pa.s.sing tramcar. "Let us climb up to the roof," he said. "There we can talk and breathe and look about us, and sometimes we can listen."
On the seat in front of them sat two young men, almost boys, talking together eagerly. Mr. Edmund Gray leaned forward and listened shamelessly. "They are two young atheists," he said. "They are cursing religion. There is to be a discussion this evening at Battle Arches between a Christian and an Atheist, and they are going to a.s.sist. They should be occupied with the question of the day; they can not, because they, too, are paid defenders of Property. They are lawyers" clerks.
They are poor and they are slaves: all their lives they will be slaves and they will be poor. Instead of fighting against slavery and poverty, which they know and feel, they fight against the Unknown and the Unintelligible. Pity! Pity!"
They pa.s.sed two great Railway Termini, covering an immense area with immense buildings.
"Now," said the Sage, "there are millions of Property invested in railways. Whenever the railway servants please, they can destroy all that Property at a stroke. Perhaps you will live to see this done."
"But," said Elsie timidly, "we must have things carried up and down the country."
"Certainly. We shall go carrying things up and down the country, but not in the interests of Property."
The tram ran past the stations and under broad railway arches, called Battle Arches--where the two young atheists got down, eager for the fray, always renewed every Sunday afternoon, with the display of much intellectual skill and much ignorance. It is a duel from which both combatants retire, breathed and flushed, proud of having displayed so much smartness, both claiming the victory, surrounded by admiring followers, and neither of them killed, neither of them hurt, neither of them a bit the worse, and both ready to begin again the following Sunday with exactly the same attack and exactly the same defence. There are some inst.i.tutions--Christianity, the Church of England, the House of Lords, for instance--which invite and receive perpetual attacks, from which they emerge without the least hurt, so far as one can perceive. If they were all abolished to-morrow, what would the spouters do?
The car stopped again, and two girls mounted--two work girls of the better sort--not, that is to say, the sort which wears an ulster and a large hat with a flaming feather in it: working-girl dressed quietly and neatly. They ought to have been cheerful and even gay, for they were both young, both good-looking, both nicely dressed, and it was Sunday afternoon, warm and sunny. Yet they were not cheerful at all. One of them was in a rage royal, and the other, her friend, was in a rage sympathetic--quite a real rage. They were talking loudly on the kerb while they waited for the tram: they carried on their conversation as they climbed the stair: they continued it while they chose a seat, and before they sat down, without the least regard to those who sat near them, whether they overheard or wished not to hear--or anything. They were wholly occupied with themselves and their rage and their narrative.
They neither saw nor heeded anyone else--which is the way that the angry woman has.
"So I told her--I up and told her, I did. "Yes," I sez, "you and your fifteen hours a day and overtime," I sez--"and your fines--so as to rob the poor girls of their money, and your stinkin" little room, as isn"t fit for two, let alone a dozen--and your flarin" gas," I sez, "to choke us and poison us--and your dinners--yah! your dinners," I sez--"fit for pigs; and your beast of a husband comin" round with his looks and his leers"--"You let my husband alone," she sez--"His looks and his leers,"
I sez. "Some day the girls"ll take him out and drownd him head first, in the gutter," I sez. "And a good job too!""
"You didn"t say all that, Liz?" asked the other, admiringly. "My! What"s she say to that? "Her beast of a husband"? And "his looks and his leers"? Did you really, Liz, and her that jealous?"
"I did. Oh! I let her have it. For once she did have it. Then I took my money and I went off.--Never mind what she called me; that don"t matter.
She got the truth for once."
"What do you make of this, disciple?" asked the Master.
"It seems a quarrel between the girl and her employer."
"These are the makers of Property. They are not the soldiers who defend it. They are those who create it. The girls are employed by the sweater, who stands on the lowest rung of the ladder of Property, and steals the things as fast as they are made."
"One of them has been turned out. What will she do? Will she find another place?"
"I don"t know. What becomes of the young? It is a difficult question. No one knows. Some say this and some say that. We know what becomes of the old when they are turned out. They die. But as for the young, I know not. You are young, and you are a woman. Go among the young women who have been turned out and find for yourself--for the world--what does become of them."
They pa.s.sed an immense churchyard, with an ancient church standing in the midst--the churchyard now cleared of its headstones and converted into a beautiful garden, after the modern fashion, in which we have abandoned the pretence of remembering the dead, and plant flowers and turf above their graves for the solace of the living. Why not? Let the nameless dead be remembered by the nameless dead. Their virtues, if they had any, may live after them in their descendants.
"See," said Mr. Edmund Gray, moralising. "Here they lie, those who were soldiers of Property and those who were slaves of Property. They are mostly the poor of their parish who lie in that garden. No headstones mark their grave. They were born: they toiled for others to enjoy: and they died. Is this the life that men should most desire?"
"Nay," said the disciple. "But there must be the strong and weak--clever and dull: there must be inequalities."
"Yes, inequalities of gifts. One man is stronger, one is sharper, one is cleverer than another. Formerly, those gifts were used to make their possessor richer and more powerful. The strong man got followers and made slaves. The clever man cheated the dull man out of his land and his liberty. Henceforth, these gifts will be used for the general good.
Patience! You shall understand all in good time."
He stopped the tram and they descended.
Lying east of the Hampstead Road and Camden High Street, and bounded on that side by the ca.n.a.l--the great s.p.a.ce occupied by the Midland and Great Northern Goods Depot, by gas-works, wharfs, and railway arches--there is a network of streets very little known to any but the parish clergy. No part of London is less interesting than this district.
It used to be called Somers Town, but I think that the old name has almost died out. It is about a hundred years old, regarded as a settlement: it possesses three churches at least, two work-houses, one almshouse, and three burial-grounds turned into gardens. It is also cheered by the presence of a coal depot. Many small industries are carried on in this quarter: there are many lodging-houses: the streets are rather grimy, the houses are rather shabby, the people are rather slipshod. They are not criminals: they are, in a way, respectable--that is to say, tolerably respectable. It is not a picturesque suburb: dulness reigns: it is a dull, a dull, a dismally dull quarter. There are children, but they lack mirth: and young girls, but they lack the spring of youth: one would say that there was a low standard in everything, even in the brightness of dress: the place looks better in winter than in summer. To-day, the bright sunshine only made the shabbiness of the streets more shabby.
"Is your place here?" asked Elsie.
"Yes; it is here.--You wonder why I came here. Because the people here are not all working-people. Some of them are small employers--those of whom I spoke--who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder and steal the things as fast as they are made, and take toll, and h.o.a.rd up savings.
The working-man is generous and open to others, compared with these people. I planted my place down in the midst of them. But you shall see--you shall see."
It was like a dream. Elsie walked beside her conductor. Yesterday she made the acquaintance of this man for the first time; she had never seen him before except in his sane condition; he was a madman--a real dangerous madman--stark staring mad; he was taking her she knew not where--to some place among strange people: she walked beside him without the least fear. She who would have fled before the most harmless lunatic; and she was going with him as his disciple.
"George," she said afterwards, "I do not know how it happened. I could not choose but go with him. I could not choose but to become his disciple: he compelled me. I lost my will. I even forgot that he was a madman: I gave up my reason and all: I followed him, and I believed all that he told me. How did he get that power? Directly I left him, I became myself again. I perceived the mad enthusiast. I saw Mr. Dering caricatured and proclaiming foolishness. But in his presence I was his servant and his slave."
"Here we are," he said. "This is my Place. Let us go in."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE HALL OF THE NEW FAITH
The Place, as Mr. Edmund Gray modestly called it, was a meek and unpretending Structure. The word is used advisedly, because no one could call it anything else. Not an Edifice; not a Building--a Structure. It turned its gabled front to the street, with a door below and a window above. It was of gray brick with a slate roof--a very plain and simple Structure. It might have been a Primitive Methodist Chapel--the Connexion are fond of such neat and unpretending places: or a room belonging to the Salvation Army: or one of those queer lecture halls affected by Secularists and generally called the Hall of Science. On the doorpost was affixed a small handbill, announcing that every Sunday evening at seven o"clock an address would be p.r.o.nounced by Edmund Gray, on the subject of "Property." On the same bill, below the line of the princ.i.p.al t.i.tle, were suggestive sub-t.i.tles. Thus:
"PROPERTY AND ITS ORIGIN."
"PROPERTY AND ITS EVILS."
"PROPERTY AND ITS DANGERS."
"PROPERTY AND LIBERTY."
"PROPERTY AND PROGRESS."
"PROPERTY AND ITS DECAY."
The Master pointed to the Bill. "Read it," he said. "There you have my mission clearly announced. No mistake about it. A bold p.r.o.nouncement, which cannot be mistaken. I make war against Property--I am the enemy irreconcilable--the enemy to the death--of Property. I am almost alone against the world, for my followers are a feeble folk and without power.
All the interests, all the prejudices, all the powers, all the intellect, of the whole world are against me. I stand alone. But I fear nothing, because the future is given over to me and to mine--yea--though I do not live to see the day of Victory."
He opened the door, and Elsie entered. She found herself in a room about sixty feet long by twenty broad, and lofty--a fine and goodly room. It was furnished with a long and narrow table running down the middle, and a few benches. Nothing else. The table was laid with a white cloth, and provided with plates of ham and beef, cold sausages, hard-boiled eggs, cakes, toast, m.u.f.fins, bread and b.u.t.ter, marmalade, jam, shrimps, water-cresses, and teacups. In fact, there was spread out a Tea of generous proportions.