The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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were spread before him there! He listened first to a speech of
Pericles on political affairs, and then to a lecture by
Anaxagoras. He was taken to the studio of Phidias and of
Polygnotus: he went to a theatre built of Persian masts to see
a new tragedy by Sophocles or Euripides, and finished the
evening at Aspasiaβs establishment, with odes of Sappho, and
ballads of Anacreon, and sweet-eyed musicians, and intellectual
heterae.
So great are the achievements of the Greeks, so deep
is the debt which we owe to them, that criticism appears
ungrateful or obtuse. It is scarcely possible to indicate the
vices and defects of this people without seeming guilty of
insensibility or affectation. It is curious to observe how
grave and sober minds accustomed to gather evidence with care,
and to utter decisions with impartiality, cease to be judicial
when Greece is brought before them. She unveils her beauty, and
they can only admire: they are unable to condemn. Those who
devote themselves to the study of the Greeks become
nationalised in their literature, and patriots of their domain,
It is indeed impossible to read their works without being
impressed by their purity, their calmness, their exquisite
symmetry and finish resembling that which is bestowed upon a
painting or a statue. But it is not only in the Greek writings
that the Greek spirit is contained: it has entered the modern
European mind it permeates the world of thought; it inspires
the ideas of those who have never read the Greek authors, and
who perhaps regard them with disdain. We do not see the
foundations of our minds: they are buried in the past. The
great books and the great discoveries of modern times are based
upon the works of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and their disciples.
All that we owe to Rome we owe to Greece as well, for Italy was
a child of Greece. The cities on the southern coast bestowed on
the rude natives the elements of culture, and when Rome became
famous it was colonised by Grecian philosophers and artists.
To Rome we are indebted for those laws from which our
jurisprudence is descended, and to Rome we are indebted for
something else besides. We shall not now pause on the Rome, of
the Republic, when every citizen was a soldier, and worked in
the fields with his own hands; when every temple was the
monument of a victory, and every statue the memorial of a hero;
when door-posts were adorned with the trophies of war, and
halls with the waxen images of ancestors; when the Romans were
simple, religious, and severe, and the vices of luxury were yet
unknown, and banquets were plain and sociable repasts, where
the guests in turn sang old ballads while the piper played. Nor
shall we pause on the Rome of Augustus, when East and West were
united in peace and with equal rights before the law; when the
tyranny of petty princedoms, and the chicanery of Grecian
courts of law, and the blood-feuds of families had been
destroyed; and the empire was calm and not yet becalmed, and
rested a moment between tumult and decay. We shall pass on to a
Rome more great and more sublime; a Rome which ruled Europe,
but not by arms; a Rome which had no mercenary legions, no
Praetorian Guards, and which yet received the tribute of kings,
and whose legates exercised the power of proconsuls. In this
Rome a man clad in the purple of the Caesars and crowned with
the tiara of the Pontifex sent forth his soldiers armed with
the crucifix, and they brought nations captive to his feet.
Rome became a city of God: she put on a spiritual crown. She
cried to the kings, Give! and gold was poured into her
exchequers; she condemned a man who had defied her, and he had
no longer a place among mankind; she proclaimed a Truce of God,
and the swords of robber knights were sheathed; she preached a
crusade, and Europe was hurled into Asia. She lowered the pride
of the haughty, and she exalted the heart of the poor; she
softened the rage of the mighty, she consoled the despair of
the oppressed. She fed the hungry, and she clothed the naked;
she took children to her arms and signed them with the Cross;
she administered the sacraments to dying lips, and laid the
cold body in the peaceful grave. Her first word was to welcome,
and her last word to forgive.
In the Dark Ages the European States were almost entirely
severed from one another; it was the Roman Church alone which gave
them one sentiment in common, and which united them within her fold.
In those days of violence and confusion, in those days of desolation and
despair, when a stranger was a thing which, like a leper or a
madman, any one might kill, when every gentleman was a highway
robber, when the only kind of lawsuit was a duel, hundreds of
men dressed in gowns of coarse dark stuff, with cords round
their waists and bare feet, travelled with impunity from castle
to castle, preaching a doctrine of peace and good will, holding
up an emblem of humility and sorrow, receiving confessions,
pronouncing penance or absolutions, soothing the agonies of a
wounded conscience, awakening terror in the hardened mind.
Parish churches were built: the baron and his vassals chanted
together the Kyrie Eleison, and bowed their heads together when
the bell sounded and the Host was raised. Here and there in the
sombre forest a band of those holy men encamped, and cut down
the trees and erected a building which was not only a house of
prayer, but also a kind of model farm. The monks worked in the
fields, and had their carpentersβ and their blacksmithsβ shops.
They copied out books in a fair hand: they painted Madonnas for
their chapel: they composed music for their choir: they
illuminated missals: they studied Arabic and Greek: they read
Cicero and Virgil: they preserved the Roman Law.
Bright, indeed, yet scanty are these gleams. In the long night of the
Dark Ages we look upon the earth, and only the convent and the
castle appear to be alive. In the convent the sound of
honourable labour mingles with the sound of prayer and praise.
In the castle sits the baron with his children on his lap, and
his wife, leaning on his shoulder: the troubadour sings, and
the page and demoiselle exchange a glance of love. The castle
is the home of music and chivalry and family affection. The
convent is the home of religion and of art. But the people
cower in their wooden huts, half starved, half frozen, and
wolves sniff at them through the chinks in the walls. The
convent prays, and the castle sings: the cottage hungers, and
groans, and dies. Such is the dark night: here and there a star
in the heaven: here and there a torch upon the earth: all else
is cloud and bitter wind. But now, behold the light glowing in
the East: it brightens, it broadens, the day is at hand! The
sun is rising, and will set no more: the castle and the convent
disappear: the world is illumined: freedom is restored. Italy
is a garden, and its blue sea shines with sails. New worlds are
discovered, new arts are invented: the merchants enrich Europe,
and their sons set her free. In a hall at Westminster, in a
redoubt at Bunker Hill, in a tennis court at Versailles, great
victories are won, and liberty at last descends even to the
poor French peasant growing grey in his furrow, even to the
negro picking cotton in the fields. Yet after all, how little
has been done! The sun shines as yet only on a corner of the
earth: Asia and Africa are buried in the night. And even here
in this island, where liberty was born, where wealth is
sustained by enterprise and industry, and war comes seldom, and
charity abounds, there are yet dark places where the sunlight
never enters, and where hope has never been: where day follows
day in never-changing toil, and where life leads only to the
prison, or the work house, or the grave. Yet a day will come
when the whole earth will be as civilised as Europe: a day will
come when these dark spots will pass away.
If we compare the present with the past, if we trace events at
all epochs to their causes, if we examine the elements of human
growth, we find that Nature has raised us to what we are, not
by fixed laws, but by provisional expedients, and that the
principle which in one age effected the advancement of a
nation, in the next age retarded the mental movement, or even
destroyed it altogether. War, despotism, slavery, and
superstition are now injurious to the progress of Europe, but
they were once the agents by which progress was produced. By
means of war the animated life was slowly raised upward in the
scale, and quadrupeds passed into man. By means of war the
human intelligence was brightened, and the affections were made
intense; weapons and tools were invented; foreign wives were
captured, and the marriages of blood relations were forbidden;
prisoners were tamed, and the women set free; prisoners were
exchanged, accompanied with presents; thus commerce was
established, and thus, by means of war, men were first brought
into amicable relations with one another. By war the tribes
were dispersed all over the world, and adopted various pursuits
according to the conditions by which they were surrounded. By
war the tribes were compressed into the nation. It was war
which founded the Chinese Empire. It was war which had locked
Babylonia, and Egypt, and India. It was war which developed the
genius of Greece. It was war which planted the Greek language
in Asia, and so rendered possible the spread of Christianity.
It was war which united the world in peace from the Cheviot
Hills to the Danube and the Euphrates. It was war which saved
Europe from the quietude of China. It was war which made Mecca
the centre of the East. It was war which united the barons in
the Crusades, and which destroyed the feudal system.
Even in recent times the action of war has been useful in condensing
scattered elements of nationality, and in liberating subject
populations. United Italy was formed directly or indirectly by
the war of 1859, 1866, and 187O. The last war realised the dreams
of German poets, and united the Teutonic nations more closely
than the shrewdest statesmen could have conceived to be
possible a few years ago. That same war, so calamitous for
France, will yet regenerate that great country, and make her
more prosperous than she has ever been. The American War
emancipated four million men, and decided for ever the question
as to whether the Union was a nationality or a league. But the
Crimean War was injurious to civilisation; it retarded a useful
and inevitable event. Turkey will some day be covered with
cornfields; Constantinople will some day be a manufacturing
town; but a generation has been lost. Statesmen and journalists
will learn in time that whatever is conquered for civilisation
is conquered for all. To preserve the Balance of Power was an
excellent policy in the Middle Ages, when war was the only
pursuit of a gentleman, and when conquest was the only ambition
of kings. It is now suited only for the highlands of Abyssinia.
The jealousy with which βtrue Britonsβ regard the Russian
success in Central Asia is surely a very miserable feeling.
That a vast region of the earth should be opened, that robbery
and rapine and slave-making raids should be suppressed, that
waste-lands should be cultivated, that new stores of wealth
should be discovered, that
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