Complete Works of G K Chesterton, page 367
MARY. I should know I had succeeded in following you to the battlefield.
SWIFT. This is a magnificent madness.
MARY. NO, my dear John, it is exceedingly good common sense. I think I am rather more practical than you are, especially about making tea. You say no man doing such work ever went with his wife. For that very reason they will never suspect you are doing such work. Besides, what is the work? To go into society, to entertain, to know everybody, to find out bit by bit what they think of the Revolution. Do you mean to say you can’t do that better as a respectable gentleman with an agreeable wife? Do you suppose you and your fellow-conspirators are going to meet in a cave? I intended to have a salon.
Enter IAN.
IAN. There are three more gentlemen landed on the island, and one of them has the speech of the English.
MARY. Oh, that will be charming. There is plenty of tea for them. Will you have a cup yourself?
IAN [drinks the tea and makes a face]. I thank you. Will you in return drink of our own usquebaugh, lady? [Unslings a drinking-horn and hands it to her.]
MARY [drinking and making a face]. Thank you. Here come your three friends.
Enter GRANT OF INVERBALLOCH, JAMES BOSWELL OF AUCHINLECK, and DR. JOHNSON.
JOHNSON. NO, Sir, I do not think it has a sublime desolation. I observe the desolation but not the sublimity.
GRANT. I fear that is due to your prejudice against our country. Dr. Johnson. Come, Sir, I know you are a champion of the great cause of religion. Has it occurred to you, Dr. Johnson, that, after all, God made Scotland?
JOHNSON. Sir, you are to remember that He made it for Scotchmen. [Gazing round.] Comparisons are odious; but God made Hell.
BOSWELL. Hell is hardly desolate in the sense of deserted; and it seems at the moment to have denizens proper to earth, or perhaps to heaven. A most charming lady appears to be doing something with a pot. [Crosses to MARY and bows.] Madam I trust that travellers meeting in so wild a place may salute each other without ceremony?
MARY. I am delighted. Will your friends take some tea?
BOSWELL [turning to JOHNSON, who has partly followed him]. The lady is asking whether you will have some tea?
JOHNSON[bowing]. Madam, among other infirmities of age, I am incommoded by deafness; and I have a difficulty in trusting my ears when they report to me, in so inhospitable a desert, an offer that appears equally incredible and intoxicating.
MARY. Oh, it is not in the least intoxicating; it’s just tea. Do have some.
JOHNSON [taking the cup and drinking]. I shall have henceforth a greater difficulty in rejecting those legends of the fairies, and their occasional beneficence to mortals, which are so commonly repeated in these mountains. Madam, if you are not a fairy queen, you should be established as the goddess of these islands; leaning classically upon an urn brimming with blessings for humanity.
MARY. Why, that is a very big and magnificent compliment in return for one little cup of tea.
JOHNSON. Indeed, Madam, I am in no way averse to drinking another. [He drinks another, and drinks a great many more at various intervals during the amicable conversation.] But I can make no pretence that any verbal compliment would be an adequate recompense. I know not what I could find for you in Bolt Court that would be as rare and refreshing as tea in the Hebrides. But if ever I have the privilege of meeting you again nearer to my customary haunts, I shall make a point of attempting to repay you.
MARY. That is very delightful of you. [To SWIFT, with a smile.] This is my first salon, and it is going to be a success.
GRANT. It is a strange place to hold one, but I assure you it is not so uncivilised as it looks. We have our simple arts here, like pastoral shepherds. I must persuade our Cory don, my friend Ian Maclean, to pipe to you in Arcady. The Macleans are great pipers. You know they were very prominent in fighting for the Young Pretender.
JOHNSON. Sir, I am informed that they distinguished themselves in fighting for the young Prince.
GRANT. I did not know you were such a Jacobite, Dr. Johnson. Who would have thought of finding you defending a rebellion?
JOHNSON. Why, Sir, rebellion is a relative term, especially in their case. They did not admit the authority of King George.
SWIFT [eagerly]. And you think, Sir, that, since they did not admit King George’s authority, they were morally justified in fighting him?
JOHNSON. Yes, Sir; morally justified, though not necessarily politically wise. For that matter a great many people agree with them, without thinking it necessary to copy them. Even in England the majority of the people would still prefer to see the legitimate line restored. They would not risk their necks for it. Perhaps they would not risk a penny piece for it. But if a vote could do it they would vote down King George to-morrow.
SWIFT. And you agree, Sir, that a vote against King George should decide the question.
JOHNSON. Why, Sir, apathy seldom decides anything; and the English nation is very apathetic about the matter. It may be, however, that there is a certain sagacity in their indifference. It is of very little moment to the individual under what form of rule he lives. I suspect that a merchant might ply his trade without knowing whether he was under the Doge of Venice or the Duke of Savoy. I am willing to pardon my countrymen, if they do not think the restoration of their rightful king worth the horror and devastation of civil war.
[More warmly.] But, Sir, there is one thing I will not do. I will not call men rebels because they were loyal when we were indifferent. I will not affect to despise men because they dared to do what we only approve. If I am to tolerate a tyrannical and usurped authority, I will not slander better men who had the honesty to find it intolerable. These poor Highlanders were none the less heroes because the tyrant triumphed, and subjected the defeated people to an abominable butchery. And I never walk under Temple Bar but I wish to uncover my head to the heads that are rotting on top of it.
GRANT. Nay, Sir, if you are so romantic a Jacobite as that, you must certainly hear the great pibroch of the Macleans, that was played at Culloden. I will fetch Ian Maclean to play it to you.
[Exit.]
SWIFT [with increasing excitement]. I am deeply interested, Sir, in your apologia for the rebels, and your striking denunciation of the tyranny of King George. I hope you will look on me with indulgence if I confess I have been moved to similar opinions, though I never expressed them so forcibly.
MARY. John, if I were you I should be careful. This gentleman may not be interested in your politics.
SWIFT. He has expressed most lucidly the very foundations of my politics. The right of a people to rise against an authority it does not recognise; the intolerable character of tyranny and especially the legal revenges of tyranny; the great truth that any rule, which a vote would overturn, is already a usurpation.
MARY. YOU are both of you using very long words; but you are making a mistake.
SWIFT. Sir, I am a member of another oppressed people, living west of the Western Highlands. We also suffer the same wrongs from the same dynasty. We also are ready to risk all that can fall upon us from the fury of King George. We also prefer death, and even defeat, to the further endurance of our lot.
JOHNSON [frowning reflectively]. Sir, if you come from Ireland, as I suppose, I can pardon the passion of your language. Your people endure a most unjust system; the oppression of a great majority by a very small minority. Nothing inflicted upon the Early Christians by Nero was worse than what has been inflicted on Ireland by England. We are now accumulating against ourselves a judgment, of which our most distant descendants will hardly see the end.
SWIFT. Sir, my people live further west than Ireland.
BOSWELL [jumping suddenly]. Oh Lord!
SWIFT. They live a long way further west. But I am very sure that a mind like your own will not be affected by geographical remoteness, to the abandonment of political principle. In the name of those great political principles you have laid down, the right of the majority against the minority, the right of rebellion against a tyranny unrecognised by any popular vote, I appeal to you as the representative of the people of Virginia —
JOHNSON [exploding]. How, Sir? What, Sir? What is the meaning of this business, Sir? Is this a joke? Do you imagine you have played a trick on me? Do you suppose, Sir, that it is feasible to entrap me? Had you the temerity, Sir, to calculate that you could involve me in anything resembling a contradiction?
MARY. DO have another cup of tea.
SWIFT. I only applied your own excellent argument to —
JOHNSON. YOU only applied it to a pack of nigger-driving ragamuffins who do not know when they are well off. You demand my sympathy for the gratuitous outrage of a rebellion ——
SWIFT. Which is only a relative term.
JOHNSON. Against the just authority of the King —
SWIFT. Who would be dethroned by a vote of his subjects.
JOHNSON [stiffening suddenly and with marked deliberation]. Sir, he who has the impatience to interrupt the words of another seldom has the patience rationally to select his own. What, Sir, does all this amount to? The colonies are in rebellion.
SWIFT. NO, Sir, the United States are at war.
JOHNSON. Sir, there are no such states; and they will soon be united, where they ought to be united, under the British Flag and the British Constitution.
SWIFT. NO, for that matter, we are going to have a flag of our own. I have it here, though it is not yet officially adopted. Where is that flag?
[He plunges among the contents of the bag.]
MARY. Oh, never mind the flag. I put it among the coloured handkerchiefs.
[SWIFT draws out the Stars and Stripes and displays it to DR. JOHNSON.
JOHNSON. Sir, I can well believe that it is not officially adopted. I should advise you to keep it dark, along with the rest of your conspiracy.
SWIFT [with rising enthusiasm]. The Stars and Stripes —
JOHNSON. Stars! Certainly, Sir, stars would seem highly appropriate to conspirators.
SWIFT. What do you mean?
JOHNSON. Because stars only come out at night.
SWIFT [in a lyric frenzy]. These are all the stars of morning; and you shall yet hear them sing together, and the Sons of God shouting for joy.
JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, if you take refuge in attempting to blaspheme —
SWIFT. I do not blaspheme. All men are the Sons of God, and by God are created free and equal. We will write that truth in words imperishable, which men shall not misread or forget. We will not have that truth tangled up in feudal traditions, or illegible on old legal parchments. You tell me of the British Constitution. What is the British Constitution? A King annoys you by being a Papist and you bring over a Dutchman, and that is the British Constitution. A King can only talk German, and you invent a new Prime Minister, and that is the British Constitution. We will have our laws of a lucidity more worthy of the human intellect. We will have our liberty in black and white.
JOHNSON. Yes, Sir. That is how you and your nigger-drivers for a long time will have your liberty. In black and white.
SWIFT. I hope for the extinction of negro slavery, in the loyal colonies as well as our own. But I gather your own solution is that black men and white should be slaves together.
JOHNSON [roaring]. Yes, Sir, when the white men have no more sense than the black. I do not know how many of your crazy colonists you may represent —
MARY [rising]. He represents one at any rate.
I think you are a very rude old gentleman, and if your King George comes over and gets his brains knocked out there won’t be much to sweep up.
JOHNSON [thunders]. As for you, Madam — [Stops.] Nay, Madam, you are right to go with your husband. If he goes to a masquerade ball dressed up as a monkey you are right to go with your husband. If he ends in a mad-house saying he is the Emperor of China you are right to go with your husband. Stick straws in your own hair and let us hope they will be becoming.
SWIFT. YOU seem to have the opinions of the Dark Ages on a great many topics, Sir. You do not understand the American woman, if you think she is cut out for the part of Patient Grizel.
JOHNSON [turning to him]. Why, Sir, Patient Grizel may very reasonably be a pattern for your wife or any woman. We read that she did her duty under many exacting trials; of which the most excruciating was being married to a fool.
[Turns his back on them and walks to the opposite entrance; where he meets GRANT, who re-enters.
GRANT. YOU must not go yet, Doctor, Ian Maclean is just coming with his pipes.
[Piping is heard and IAN marches across playing furiously.
GRANT. This is the Maclean style of piping, and is rather unique. They march for long distances and back again, giving that effect of the rise and fall of sound. I think it is delightful to hear the strange music swell into a stirring march and then slowly fade away.
JOHNSON. I agree, Sir, that it is delightful to hear it fade away.
GRANT. That might have two meanings, I fear; but I assure you piping is a real and complex art. Men study it for a life-time; it is very difficult.
BOSWELL. Certainly, it is extremely difficult.
JOHNSON. I wish it were impossible.
GRANT. Why, what has become of your Jacobite enthusiasm, Sir? This is the very pibroch to which your loyal clansmen died at Culloden.
JOHNSON. I do not wonder that they died.
[Turning suddenly and shouting across at SWIFT.] Since you compare yourselves to the Highlanders, let me recommend bagpipes to the American Army. You will find them suitable, for they need nothing but wind.
[Exit JOHNSON in a Jury, followed by BOSWELL and GRANT.
SWIFT [breaking out]. The old mummy! The old blockhead! I’ve a good mind —
MARY [detaining him]. Now, John, don’t make a scene at my salon!
SWIFT. Give me the flag. I’d like to strangle him with it. I’d like to run it up to the tallest tree on the island.
MARY. There are times when I doubt whether you were meant to be a secret agent.
SWIFT. Oh, it doesn’t matter in a hole like this; and he’s only some old schoolmaster; we shan’t see him again. [Rushes out.]
MARY. I have a notion we shall see him again.
[Enter MOIRA, and the two women begin to put away the tea-things and rake out the fire.
MARY. YOU have children, I think. Somebody told me you had children.
MOIRA. I have two sons and a daughter.
MARY. I should love to see your children. Ever since I came here, and people were saying what a wild and lonely place it was, I was thinking that it would be a wonderful playground for children.
MOIRA. Yes, I was born on this island myself; and I used to play in that wood and paddle in the sea; and it was a beautiful place.
[IAN re-crosses the stage still piping vigorously.
But when the lasses grow up they have other things to do.
MARY. And when the lads grow up?
MOIRA. The lads never grow up.
[The Stars and Stripes rises beyond tie trees, waving in the wind.
ACT II
SCENE — The rooms of MR. and MRS. SWIFT in London. The walls are mostly lined with bookshelves, and there are books and papers heaped on the table. In the foreground there is a smaller table; and at one side of the room a sofa. There is a door at the back leading into an inner room, and beside it a sort of alcove let into the wall with a bench in it. SWIFT is sitting at the larger table reading in a flowered dressing-gown of the period; MARY SWIFT is fully dressed for a reception and is moving rather restlessly about the room.
MARY. John, you must really go and put on your coat. Those people will be arriving very soon.
SWIFT. Very well, my dear, very well. [Goes on reading.] Where is the other volume of this book, I wonder?
MARY. DO you mean the book the French lady lent you? I put it back in its place. [Goes towards the bookcase.]
SWIFT. Never mind, my dear. It really does not matter. I will get it myself when I want it. Do sit down; you must be tired.
MARY. I am a little tired.
SWIFT. Then do please sit down. Sit down on the sofa.
MARY. Very well. [Goes to the bookcase and brings him the book.]
SWIFT. Thank you, thank you; but really I didn’t mean you to. I wish you would take a rest on the sofa.
MARY. There are books on the sofa. [Begins to put them away in the bookcase.]
SWIFT [with some exasperation]. Why on earth should you put away the books? You said yourself you were tired.
MARY. I am tired of seeing them lying about.
SWIFT. I’m not sure I know what you mean by being tired of seeing things.
MARY. I’m very tired of seeing that dressing gown, with people coming to call in a few minutes. The French lady’s book must be very interesting.
SWIFT. It is very interesting; by one of the new French philosophers, the Marquise de Montmarat — by the way we had better remember her name as it is part of our story.
MARY. Oh, I shall not forget it.
SWIFT. Well, it is really important that we should be connected with French books and French people; because we are supposed to have come from France. To avoid complications I admitted that we were both born in America; but I said I was taken to France at an early age and educated there; and that I found you in a Belgian convent school.
MARY. Oh, I know my story. It’s enough to make my poor mother in New England turn in her grave, to say I was ever at a convent school.
SWIFT. Well, it would hardly be wise to go so far as saying that I had run away with a nun. But it pleases our liberal friends to think I have romantically rescued you from the general atmosphere of the cloister. But the main point is that we have been on the Continent most of our lives, and only crossed the Channel recently, like the Marquise herself. That clears us of all practical connection with the Revolution at home, and at the same time allows us to express tolerably revolutionary opinions in the abstract — also like the Marquise herself.
MARY. And that is your reason for reading the Marquise’s book.
SWIFT. Well, it is a very interesting book, and the Marquise is a very interesting woman. With the opinions about the state I have long agreed; but some of the opinions about the family are new to me; and, I confess, rather startling as well as striking. But the main point is that our French friends help us to polish up our French autobiography, and the real story is less likely to come out. It obliterates all traces of the two lunatics who landed in the Hebrides.
