Philistia

Philistia

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Title: Philistia
Author: Grant Allen
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6058] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 30, 2002]
Edition: 10

Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PHILISTIA
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Proofreading Team

PHILISTIA
BY
GRANT ALLEN

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER
I. CHILDREN OF LIGHT II. THE COASTS OF THE GENTILES III.
MAGDALEN QUAD IV. A LITTLE MUSIC V. ASKELON VILLA,
GATH VI. DOWN THE RIVER VII. GHOSTLY COUNSEL VIII. IN
THE CAMP OF THE PHILISTINES IX. THE WOMEN OF THE
LAND X. THE DAUGHTERS OF CANAAN XI. CULTURE AND
CULTURE XII. THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY XIII. YE
MOUNTAINS OF GILBOA XIV. WHAT DO THESE HEBREWS
HERE XV. EVIL TIDINGS XVI. FLAT REBELLION XVII. COME
YE OUT AND BE YE SEPARATE! XVIII. A QUIET WEDDING
XIX. INTO THE FIRE XX. LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND THE
DRAMA XXI. OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE XXII. THE
PHILISTINES TRIUMPH XXIII. THE STREETS OF ASKELON
XXIV. THE CLOUDS BEGIN TO BREAK XXV. HARD PRESSED
XXVI. IRRECLAIMABLE XXVII. RONALD COMES OF AGE
XXVIII. TELL IT NOT IN GATH XXIX. A MAN AND A MAID
XXX. THE ENVIRONMENT FINALLY TRIUMPHS XXXI. DE
PROFUNDIS XXXII. PRECONTRACT OF MARRIAGE XXXIII. A
GLEAM OF SUNSHINE XXXIV. HOPE XXXV. THE TIDE TURNS

XXXVI. OUT OF THE HAND OF THE PHILISTINES XXXVII.
LAND AT LAST: BUT WHAT LAND?

CHAPTER I.
CHILDREN OF LIGHT.
It was Sunday evening, and on Sundays Max Schurz, the chief of the
London Socialists, always held his weekly receptions. That night his
cosmopolitan refugee friends were all at liberty; his French disciples
could pour in from the little lanes and courts in Soho, where, since the
Commune, they had plied their peaceful trades as engravers,
picture-framers, artists'-colourmen, models, pointers, and so forth--for
most of them were hangers-on in one way or another of the artistic
world; his German adherents could stroll round, pipe in mouth, from
their printing-houses, their ham-and-beef shops, or their naturalists'
chambers, where they stuffed birds or set up exotic butterflies in little
cabinets--for most of them were more or less literary or scientific in
their pursuits; and his few English sympathisers, chiefly dissatisfied
philosophical Radicals of the upper classes, could drop in casually for a
chat and a smoke, on their way home from the churches to which they
had been dutifully escorting their un-emancipated wives and sisters.
Max Schurz kept open house for all on Sunday evenings, and there was
not a drawing-room in London better filled than his with the very
advanced and not undistinguished set who alone had the much-prized
entrée of his exclusive salon.
The salon itself did not form any component part of Max Schurz's own
private residence in any way. The great Socialist, the man whose
mandates shook the thrones of Russia and Austria, whose movements
spread terror in Paris and Berlin, whose dictates were even obeyed in
Kerry and in Chicago, occupied for his own use two small rooms at the
top of a shabby composite tenement in a doubtful district of
Marylebone. The little parlour where he carried on his trade of a
microscope-lens grinder would not have sufficed to hold one-tenth of
the eager half-washed crowd that pressed itself enthusiastically upon

him every Sunday. But a large room on the ground floor of the
tenement, opening towards the main street, was used during the week
by one of his French refugee friends as a dancing-saloon; and in this
room on every Sunday evening the uncrowned king of the proletariate
Socialists was permitted to hold his royal levees. Thither all that was
best and truest in the socially rebellions classes domiciled in London
used to make its way; and there men calmly talked over the ultimate
chances of social revolutions which