The Martyrdom of Man - Winwood Reade (golden son ebook txt) 📗
- Author: Winwood Reade
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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
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