Essays in Rebellion Part 25

The editor must be back by now. Calm and decisive, he takes his seat in his own room, like the conductor of an orchestra preparing to raise his baton now that the tuning-up is finished. The leader-writers are coming in for their instructions. No need for much consultation to-night--not for the first leader anyhow. For the second--well, there are a good many things one could suggest: Turkey or Persia or the eternal German Dreadnought for a foreign subject; the stage censorship or the price of cotton; and the cup-ties, or the extinction of hats for both s.e.xes as a light note to finish with. He's always labouring to invent "something light," is the editor. He says we must sometimes consider the public; just as though we wrote the rest of the paper for our own private fun.

But there's no doubt about the first leader to-night. There's only one subject on which it would be a shock to every reader in the morning not to find it written. And, my word! what a subject it is! What seriousness and indignation and conviction one could get into it! I should begin by restating the situation. You must always a.s.sume that the reader's ignorance is new every morning, as love should be; and anyone who happens to know something about it likes to see he was right. I should work in adroit references to this evening's speeches, and that would fill the first paragraph--say, three sides of my copy, or something over. In the second paragraph I'd show the immense issues involved in the present contest, and expose the fallacies of our opponents who attempt to belittle the matter as temporary and unlikely to recur--say, three sides of my copy again, but not a word more. And, then, in the third paragraph, I'd adjure the Government, in the name of all their party hold sacred, to stand firm, and I'd appeal to the people of this great Empire never to allow their ancient liberties to be encroached upon or overridden by a set of irresponsible--well, in short, I should be like General Sherman when at the crisis of a battle he used to say, "Now, let everything go in"--four sides of my copy, or even five if the stuff is running well.

Somebody must be writing that leader now. Possibly he is doing it better than I should, but I hope not. When Hannibal wandered all those years in Asia at the Court of silly Antiochus this or stupid Prusias the other, and knew that Carthage was falling to ruin while he alone might have saved her if only she had allowed him, would he have rejoiced to hear that someone else was succeeding better than himself--had traversed the Alps with a bigger army, had won a second Cannae, and even at Zama s.n.a.t.c.hed a decisive victory? Hannibal might have rejoiced. He was a very exceptional man.

But here's a poor creature still playing the clarionet down the street, on the pretence of giving pleasure worth a penny. Yes, my boy, I know you're out of work, and that is why you play the "Last Rose of Summer"

and "When other Lips." I am out of work, too, and I can't play anything.

You say you learnt when a boy, and once played in the orchestra at Drury Lane; but now you've come to wandering about suburban streets, and having finished "When other Lips," you will quite naturally play "My Lodging's on the Cold Ground." Only last night I was playing in an orchestra myself, not a hundred miles (obsolete journalistic tag!)--not a hundred miles from Drury Lane. It was a grand orchestra, that of ours.

Night by night it played the symphony of the world, and each night a new symphony was performed, without rehearsal. The drums of our orchestra were the echoes of thundering wars; the flutes and soft recorders were the eloquence of an Empire's statesmen; and our 'cellos and violins wailed with the pity of all mankind. In that vast orchestra I played the horn that sounds the charge, or with its sharp reveille vexes the ear of night before the sun is up. Here is your penny, my brother in affliction. I, too, have once joined in the music of a star, and now wander the suburban streets.

That leader-writer has not finished yet, but the proofs of the beginning of his article will be coming down. In an hour or so his work will be over, and he will pa.s.s out into the street exhausted, but happy with the sense of function fulfilled. Fleet Street is quieter now. The lamps gleam through the fog, a motor-'bus thunders by, a few late messengers flit along with the latest telegrams, and some stragglers from the restaurants come singing past the Temple. For a few moments there is silence but for the leader-writer's quick footsteps on the pavement. He is some hours in front of the morning's news, and in a few hours more half a million people will be reading what he has just written, and will quote it to each other as their own. How often I have had whole sentences of my stuff thrown at me as conclusive arguments almost before the printing ink was dry!

Here I stand, beside a solitary lamp-post upon a suburban acclivity. The light of the city's existence I think my successor would say, of her pulsating and palpitating or ebullient existence--is pale upon the sky, and the murmur of her voice sounds like large but distant waves. I stand alone, and near me there is no sound but the complaint of a homeless tramp swearing at the cold as he settles down upon a bench for the night.

How I used to swear at that boy for not coming quick enough to fetch my copy! I knew the young scoundrel's step--I knew the step of every man and boy in that office. I knew the way each of them went up and down the stairs, and coughed or whistled or spat. What knowledge dies with me now that I am gone! _Qualis artifex pereo!_ But that boy--how I should love to be swearing at him now! I wonder whether he misses me? I hope he does. "It would be an a.s.surance most dear," as an old song of exile used to say.

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

NEIGHBOURS OF OURS: Scenes of East End Life.

IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET: Scenes of Black Country Life.

THE THIRTY DAYS' WAR: Scenes in the Greek and Turkish War of 1897.

LADYSMITH: a Diary of the Siege.

CLa.s.sIC GREEK LANDSCAPE AND ARCHITECTURE: Text to John Fulleylove's Pictures of Greece.

THE PLEA OF PAN.

BETWEEN THE ACTS: Scenes in the Author's Experience.

ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH FRANCE TO FLORENCE: French Chapters to Hallam Murray's Pictures.

BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES: a volume of Criticism.

A MODERN SLAVERY: an Investigation of the Slave System in Angola and the Islands of San Thome and Principe.

THE DAWN IN RUSSIA: Scenes in the Revolution of 1905-1906.

THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA: Scenes during the Unrest of 1907-1908.

ESSAYS IN FREEDOM.

THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM: a Summary of the History of Democracy.