It was in this way that the whole trouble began. There was an
inquisitive girl foolishly allowed to grow up in this ancient Museum
and among the old books, who developed a morbid curiosity for the Past,
of which the books and pictures and collections taught her something;
yet not all she wished to learn. She was unconsciously aided by the old
man, who had been approaching his second childhood even at the time
of the Great Discovery, and whose memory now continually carried him
backward to the days of his youth, without the least recollection of
the great intervals between. Lastly, there had come to the town, in
the pursuit of his business, a sailor, restless and discontented, as
is the case with all his class, questioning and independent; impatient
of authority, and curiously unable to forget the old times. The sailor
and the girl, between them, at first instigated and pushed on the
whole business; they were joined, no doubt, by many others; but these
two were the first leaders. The Chief Culprit of all, the nominal
Leader--but you shall presently hear what kind of excuse could be made
for him by himself. As for those whom they dragged reluctantly out
of the tranquillity of oblivion, they were at first wholly drawn from
the class which, at the outset, gave us so much trouble--the so-called
gentle class--who desired nothing so much as to continue to live under
the old conditions--namely, by the labor of others. It wanted, for
these people, only the revival of memory to produce the revival of
discontent. When their minds were once more filled with the thought
of the things they had lost--the leadership, the land, the wealth,
and with the memory of the arts which they had formerly loved--music,
painting, letters--and with the actual sight, once more restored to
them, of their old amusements--their dancing, their society, their
singing, their games; and when the foolish old idol, Love, was once
more trotted out, like an old-fashioned Guy Fawkes, decked in his
silly old rainbow tints; when, night after night, they actually began
to play, act, and to pretend these things, what could possibly follow
but revolt, with subsequent punishment and expulsion? You shall hear.
Of course, they would have been punished with expulsion had not--but
everything in its place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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