Gerald Massey's Lectures - Society in evolution - Awardspace

Herostratus or Guiteau--the fellow who culminated as a fool gone insane with vanity--he
would do anything to be talked about, or written to--even commit Massey-cre--if he were
only able.*
Never did any writer known to me put forth such strenuous or futile efforts to lift himself
up by his own shirt-collar and add a cubit to his stature in the eyes of the lookers on.
From the beginning to the end of his attempts, his aim and object, the total drift of all his
deprecation, is to belittle my work, and make himself look large to his readers through a
mist of his own making. A chief part of his criticism consists in proclaiming that he does
not see! I never said he did, or could. Nelson at Copenhagen put up the glass to his one
blind eye and could not perceive the signal flying. Mr. Coleman often puts his glass to
two, with the same result of not seeing.
I have had to congratulate him on writing to me to set him right on the subject of
astronomy, before he put his foot into it on a matter most fundamentally important to my
subject; the ignorance shown by his questions being astounding.
With all his native impudence he has asserted (in the Religio-philosophical Journal), that
the name of Jesus Christ was unknown until the middle of the first century A.D. (cf. the
second book of Esdras--a pre-Christian book of the Secret Wisdom.)
In the same journal he classed Baring Gould as being on my side, in opposition to all
other writers on the subject of Jehoshua Ben Pandira, and entirely overlooked the fact
that although Baring Gould used the same Talmudic material as myself, his conclusions
were totally antipodal to mine; and that he remains as orthodox to-day as were his
conclusions then.
And now Mr. Coleman may pass with his certificates.
There is an American story of a dog who ran after a wolf, fast and furious at first, but
before the race was over, the dog was seen to be flying still faster--a "leetle bit in front of
the wolf!"
Mr. Coleman is not an authority, and has no reputation to lose. But his private backers
have; and they have committed the unpardonable sin against scholarship of endorsing and
justifying false statements made against me by Mr. Coleman, without taking the trouble
to test the truth of his assertions or to verify the alleged facts for themselves. They were
so ready to make a mountain of an underhand, underground worker's little molehill; they
were so eager to have me knifed, that they have warranted a blade which was
treacherously limp and leaden!
Mr. Sayce marvels at my effrontery in making assertions, some of which Mr. Coleman
has so falsely put into my mouth; and then charges me with
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* A literary correspondent writes of this Sahur:--"I know little about Egyptology, but I do know that the
fellow deserves a--well, a 'serendible good drubbing' for his insolence to you. Should you reply, please give
him a kick from me, if only in a foot-note."
"false quotation"; and he calls Mr. Coleman's puerile performance a "very thorough
demolition," and a "real service to the cause of truth." He rejoices over what he terms an
impartial and merciless exposure.
To my thinking the Professor is rather Uriah-Heepishly thankful for exceedingly small
mercies, and says grace to a miserable meal.
Mr. --- vouches for the fact that his correspondent is "quite right;" and it appears that
neither of them knows better, or else their vision was overclouded with the bile of a bitter
bigotry. Either way, I warn my American friends that Mr. --- has made use of the official
stamp (the Hall-mark, so to say,) of the British Museum, to pass off spurious wares upon
unsuspecting people in the United States! and I fancy that, for all lovers of truth, justice,
and fair play, I have so far demonstrated the congenital incompetence of my critics to sit
in judgment on my work.