THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

OneEpistles from AbroadDearly beloved,You, my alter ego, my second existence, nowsitting comfortably at home and, doubtless, reading the romanticfictions of the Empire by the light of heavily-priced kerosine;I, who roam uncomfortably in foreign climes, sighing forthe joys of the Press Act and the house-search; these faces,white and unfamiliar, that surround me; these miles of soullessbrick and faultless macadam, the fitting body for a point-deviceand dapper civilisation which has lost sight of grandeur,beauty and nobility in life, — are we, I wonder, flitting visionsof a nightmare that passes or real men and women made inGod's image? Was life always so trivial, always so vulgar, alwaysso loveless, pale and awkward as the Europeans havemade it? This well-appointed comfort oppresses me, this perfectionof machinery will not allow the soul to remember thatit is not itself a machine.Is this then the end of the long march of human civilisation,this spiritual suicide, this quiet petrifaction of the soul intomatter? Was the successful businessman that grand culminationof manhood toward which evolution was striving? Afterall, if the scientific view is correct, why not? An evolution thatstarted with the protoplasm and flowered in the ourang-outangand the chimpanzee, may well rest satisfied with having createdhat, coat and trousers, the British Aristocrat, the AmericanCapitalist and the Parisian Apache. For these, I believe, are thechief triumphs of the European enlightenment to which we bowour heads. For these Augustus created Europe, Charlemagnerefounded civilisation, Louis XIV regulated society, Napoleonsystematised the French Revolution. For these Goethe thought,Shakespeare imagined and created, St. Francis loved, Christ wascrucified. What a bankruptcy! What a beggary of things thatwere rich and noble!