Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
But truly a 'Splendour of God,' as in William Conqueror's rough
oath, did dwell in those old rude veracious ages; did inform,
more and more, with a heavenly nobleness, all departments of
their work and life. Phantasms could not yet walk abroad in mere
Cloth Tailorage; they were at least Phantasms 'on the rim of the
horizon,' pencilled there by an eternal Light-beam from within.
A most 'practical' Hero-worship went on, unconsciously or half-
consciously, everywhere. A Monk Samson, with a maximum of two
shillings in his pocket, could, without ballot-box, be made a
Viceking of, being seen to be worthy. The difference between a
good man and a bad man was as yet felt to be, what it forever is,
an immeasurable one. Who _durst_ have elected a Pandarus Dog-
draught, in those days, to any office, Carlton Club, Senatorship,
or place whatsoever? It was felt that the arch Satanas and no
other had a clear right of property in Pandarus; that it were
better for you to have no hand in Pandarus, to keep out of
Pandarus his neighbourhood! Which is, to this hour, the mere
fact; though for the present, alas, the forgotten fact. I think
they were comparatively blessed times those, in their way!
'Violence,' 'war,' 'disorder:' well, what is war, and death
itself, to such a perpetual life-in-death, and 'peace and peace
where there is no peace!' Unless some Hero-worship, in its new
appropriate form, can return, this world does not promise to be
very habitable long.
Old Anselm, exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the purest-
minded 'men of genius,' was traveling to make his appeal to Rome
against King Rufus,--a man of rough ways, in whom the 'inner
Light-beam' shone very fitfully. It is beautiful to read, in
Monk Eadmer, how the Continental populations welcomed and
venerated this Anselm, as no French population now venerates
Jean-Jacques or giant-killing Voltaire; as not even an American
population now venerates a Schnuspel the distinguished Novelist!
They had, by phantasy and true insight, the intensest conviction
that a God's Blessing dwelt in this Anselm,--as is my conviction
too. They crowded round, with bent knees and enkindled hearts,
to receive his blessing, to hear his voice, to see the light of
his face. My blessings on them and on him!--But the notablest
was a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, in
straitened circumstances we shall hope,--who reflected that in
all likelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome to
appeal, must have taken store of cash with him to bribe the
Cardinals. Wherefore he of Burgundy, for his part, decided to
lie in wait and rob him. 'In an open space of a wood,' some
'wood' then green and growing, eight centuries ago, in Burgundian
Land,--this fierce Duke, with fierce steel followers, shaggy,
savage, as the Russian Bear, dashes out on the weak old Anselm;
who is riding along there, on his small quiet-going pony;
escorted only by Eadmer and another poor Monk on ponies; and,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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