The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

air. Others changed the garlands of the guests as soon as

they began to fade. Between the courses dwarfs and deformed persons

skipped about before the company with marvellous antics and

contortions; jugglers and gymnasts exhibited many extraordinary feats;

girls jumped through hoops, tossed several balls into the air after the

manner of the East, and performed dances after the manner of the West.

Strange as it may appear, the pirouette was known to the Egyptians three

thousand years ago, and stranger still, their ballet-girls danced it in lighter

clothing than is worn by those who now grace the operatic boards. At the

beginning of the repast a mummy, richly painted and gilded, was carried

round by a servant, who showed it to each guest in turn and said, “Look

on this, drink and enjoy thyself, for such as it is now, so thou shalt be

when thou art dead.” So solemn an injunction was not disregarded, and

the dinner often ended as might be expected from the manner in which it

was begun. The Hogarths of the period have painted the young dandy

being carried home by his footman without his wig, while the lady in her

own apartment is showing unmistakable signs of the same disorder.

 

But we must leave these pleasant strolls in the bypaths of history and

return to the broad and beaten road. The vast wealth and soft luxury of

the New Empire undermined its strength. It became apparent to the

Egyptians themselves that the nation was enervated and corrupt, a

swollen, pampered body from which all energy and vigour had for ever

fled. A certain Pharaoh commanded a curse to be inscribed in one of the

temples against the name of Menes, who had first seduced the Egyptians

from the wholesome simplicity of early times. Filled with a spirit of

prophecy, the king foresaw his country’s ruin, which indeed was near at

hand, for though he himself was buried in peace, his son and successor

was compelled to hide in the marshes from a foreign foe.

 

To the same cause may be traced the ruin and the fall, not only of Egypt,

but of all the powers of the ancient world; of Nineveh and Babylon and

Persia; of the Macedonian kingdom and the Western Empire. As soon as

those nations became rich they began to decay. If this were the fifth

century, and we were writing history in the silent and melancholy streets

of Rome, we should probably propound a theory entirely false, yet

justified at that time by the universal experience of mankind. We should

declare that nations are mortal like the individuals of which they are

composed; that wealth is the poison, luxury the disease, which shortens

their existence and dooms them to an early death. We should point to the

gigantic ruins around—to that vast and mouldering body from which the

soul had fled—moralise about Lucullus and his thrushes, recount the

enormous sums that had been paid for a dress, a table or a child, and

assure our Gothic pupils that national life and health are only to be

preserved by contented poverty and simple fare.

 

But what has been the history of those barbarians? In the Dark Ages

there was no luxury in Europe. It was a miserable continent inhabited by

robbers, fetishmen, and slaves. Even the Italians of the eleventh century

wore clothes of unlined leather, and had no taste except for horses and for

shining arms, no pride except that of building strong towers for their lairs.

Man and wife grabbled for their supper from the same plate, while a

squalid boy stood by them with a torch to light their greasy fingers to

their mouths. Then the India trade was opened; the New World was

discovered; Europe became rich, luxurious, and enlightened. The

sunshine of wealth began first to beam upon the costs of the

Mediterranean Sea, and gradually spread towards the North. In the

England of Elizabeth it was declared from the pulpit that the introduction

of forks would demoralise the people and provoke divine wrath. But in

spite of sermons and sumptuary laws, Italian luxuries continued to pour

in, and national prosperity continued to increase. At the present day the

income of a nation affords a fair criterion of its intellect and also of its

strength. It may safely be asserted that the art of war will soon be

reduced to a simple question of expenditure and credit, and that the

largest purse will be the strongest arm. As for luxury, a small tradesman

at the present day is more luxurious than a king in ancient times. It has

been wisely and wittily remarked that Augustus Caesar had neither glass

panes to his windows nor a shirt to his back, and the luxury of the Roman

senators may without exaggeration be compared with that of the West

Indian creoles in the eighteenth century. The gentleman and his lady

glittered with jewels; the table and sideboard blazed with plate; but the

house itself was little better than a barn, and the attendants a crowd of

dirty, half-naked slaves who jostled the guests as they performed the

service of the table, and sat down in the verandah over the remnants of

the soup before they would condescend to go to the kitchen for the fish.

 

In the modern world we find luxury the harbinger of progress, in the

ancient world the omen of decline. But how can this be? Nature does not

contradict herself; the laws which govern the movements of society are as

regular and unchangeable as those which govern the movements of the

stars.

 

Wealth is in reality as indispensable to mankind for purposes of growth as

water to the soil. It is not the fault of the water if its natural circulation

is

interfered with, if certain portions of the land are drowned while others

are left completely dry. Wealth in all countries of the ancient world was

artificially confined to a certain class. More than half the area of the

Greek and Roman world was shut off by slavery from the fertilising

stream. This single fact is sufficient to explain how that old civilisation,

in some respects so splendid, was yet so one-sided and incomplete.

 

But the civilisation of Egypt was less developed still, for that country was

enthralled by institutions from which Greece and Rome, happily for them,

were free.

 

It has been shown that the instinct for self-preservation, the struggle for

bare life against hostile nature, first aroused the mental activity of the

Egyptian priests, while the constant attacks of the desert tribes developed

the martial energies of the military men. Next, the ambition of power

produced an equally good effect. The priests invented, the warriors

campaigned; mines were opened, manufactories were founded; a system

of foreign commerce was established; sloth was abolished by whip and

chain; the lower classes were saddled, the upper classes were spurred; the

nation careered gallantly along. Finally, chivalrous ardour, intellectual

passion, inspired heart and brain; war was loved for glory’s sake; the

philosopher sought only to discover, the artist to perfect.

 

And then there came a race of men who, like those that inherit great

estates, had no incentive to continue the work which had been so

splendidly begun. In one generation the genius of Egypt slumbered, in

the next it died. Its painters and sculptors were no longer possessed of

that fruitful faculty with which kindred spirits contemplate each other’s

works; which not only takes, but gives; which produces from whatever it

receives; which embraces to wrestle, and wrestles to embrace; which is

sometimes sympathy, sometimes jealousy, sometimes hatred, sometimes

love, but which always causes the heart to flutter, and the face to flush,

and the mind to swell with the desire to rival and surpass; which is

sometimes as the emulative awe with which Michael Angelo surveyed the

dome that yet gladdens the eyes of those who sit on the height of fair

Fiesole, or who wander afar off in silver Arno’s vale; which is sometimes

as that rapture of admiring wrath which incited the genius of Byron when

his great rival was pouring forth masterpiece on masterpiece with

invention more varied, though perhaps less lofty, and with fancy more

luxuriant even than his own.

 

The creative period passed away, and the critical age set in. Instead of

working, the artists were content to talk. Their admiration was sterile, yet

still it was discerning. But the next period was lower still. It was that of

blind worship and indiscriminating awe. The past became sacred, and all

that it had produced, good and bad, was reverenced alike. This kind of

idolatry invariably springs up in that interval of languor and reaction

which succeeds an epoch of production In the mind-history of every

land there is a time when slavish imitation is inculcated as a duty, and

novelty regarded as a crime. But in Egypt the arts and sciences were

entangled with religion. The result will easily be guessed. Egypt stood

still, and theology turned her into stone. Conventionality was admired,

then enforced. The development of the mind was arrested; it was

forbidden to do any new thing.

 

In primitive times it is perhaps expedient that rational knowledge should

be united with religion. It is only by means of superstition that a rude

people can be induced to support, and a robber soldiery to respect, an

intellectual class. But after a certain time this alliance must be ended, or

harm will surely come. The boy must leave the apartments of the women

when he arrives at a certain age. Theology is an excellent nurse, but a

bad mistress for grown-up minds. The essence of religion is inertia; the

essence of science is change. It is the function of the one to preserve, it is

the function of the other to improve. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly

chained together, either science will advance, in which case the religion

will be altered, or the religion will preserve its purity, and science will

congeal.

 

The religious ideas of the Egyptians became associated with a certain

style. It was enacted that the human figure should be drawn always in the

same manner, with the same colours, contour, and proportions. Thus the

artist was degraded to an artisan, and originality was strangled in its birth.

 

The physicians were compelled to prescribe for their patients according to

the rules set down in the standard works. If they adopted a treatment of

their own and the patient did not recover, they were put to death. Thus

even in desperate cases heroic remedies could not be tried, and

experiment, the first condition of discovery, was disallowed.

 

A censorship of literature was not required, for literature in the proper

sense of the term did not exist. Writing, it is true, was widely spread.

Cattle, clothes, and workmen’s tools were marked with the owners’

names. The walls of the temples were covered and adorned with that

beautiful picture character, more like drawing than writing, which cold

delight the eyes of those who were unable to penetrate its sense.

Hieroglyphics may be found on everything in Egypt, from the colossal

statue to the amulet and gem. But the art was practised only by the

priests, as the painted history plainly declares. No books are to be seen in

the furniture of houses; no female is depicted in the act of reading; the

papyrus scroll and pencil never appear except in connection with some

official act.

 

The library at Thebes was much admired. It had a blue ceiling speckled

with golden stars. Allegorical pictures of a religious character and

portraits of the sacred animals were painted on the walls. Above the door

were inscribed these words, “The Balsam of the Soul.” Yet this

magnificent building contained merely a collection of prayer books and

ancient hymns, some astronomical almanacs, some works