How pleasant if we had
lived our lives in the nineteenth century and no other, with the
ground all firm under our feet! True, the people who flourished then
had recurring alarms. But their alarms were quite needless; whereas
ours--! Ours, as I glanced at this morning' s news from Timbuctoo and
elsewhere, seemed odiously needful. Withal, our Old Nobility in its
pleasaunces was treading once more the old graceful measure which the
War arrested; Bohemia had resumed its motley; even the middle class
was capering, very noticeably... To gad about smiling as though he
were quite well, thank you, or to sit down, pull a long face, and make
his soul,--which, I wondered, is the better procedure for a man
knowing that very soon he will have to undergo a vital operation at
the hands of a wholly unqualified surgeon who dislikes him personally?
I inclined to think the gloomier way the less ghastly. But then, I
asked myself, was my analogy a sound one? We are at the mercy of
Labour, certainly; and Labour does not love us; and Labour is not
deeply versed in statecraft. But would an unskilled surgeon, however
ill-wishing, care to perform a drastic operation on a patient by whose
death he himself would forthwith perish? Labour is wise enough--
surely?--not to will us destruction. Russia has been an awful example.
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