Philistia | Page 7

said Oswald to Ernest, in a
half-undertone,' and it never struck me to think what they might have to
say for themselves from their own side of the question.'
'That's one of the uses of coming here to Herr Schurz's,' Ernest
answered quickly. 'You may not agree with all you hear, but at least
you learn to see others as they see themselves; whereas if you mix
always in English society, and read only English papers, you will see
them only as we English see them.'
'But just fancy,' Oswald went on, as they both stood back a little to
make way for others who wished for interviews with the great man,
'just fancy that this Borodinsky, or whatever his name may be, has
himself very likely helped in dynamite plots, or manufactured
nitro-glycerine cartridges to blow up the Czar; and yet we stand here
talking with him as coolly as if he were an ordinary respectable
innocent Englishman.'
'What of that?' Ernest answered, smiling. 'Didn't we meet Prince

Strelinoffsky at Oriel last term, and didn't we talk with him too, as if he
was an honest, hard-working, bread-earning Christian? and yet we
knew he was a member of the St. Petersburg office clique, and at the
bottom of half the trouble in Poland for the last ten years or so. Grant
even that Borodinsky is quite wrong in his way of dealing with noxious
autocrats, and yet which do you think is the worst criminal of the
two--he with his little honest glazier's shop in a back slum of
Paddington, or Strelinoffsky with his jewelled fingers calmly signing
accursed warrants to send childing Polish women to die of cold and
hunger and ill-treatment on the way to Siberia?'
'Well, really, Le Breton, you know I'm a passably good Radical, but
you're positively just one stage too Radical even for me.'
'Come here oftener,' answered Ernest; 'and perhaps you'll begin to think
a little differently about some things.'
An hour later in the evening Max Schurz found Ernest alone in a quiet
corner. 'One moment, my dear Le Breton,' he said; 'you know I always
like to find out all about people's political antecedents; it helps one to
fathom the potentialities of their characters. From what social stratum,
now, do we get your clever friend, Mr. Oswald?'
'His father's a petty tradesman in a country town in Devonshire, I
believe,' Ernest answered; 'and he himself is a good general democrat,
without any very pronounced socialistic colouring.'
'A petty tradesman! Hum, I thought so. He has rather the mental
bearing and equipment of a man from the petite bourgeoisie. I have
been talking to him, and drawing him out. Clever, very, and with good
instincts, but not wholly and entirely sound. A fibre wrong somewhere,
socially speaking, a false note suspected in his ideas of life; too much
acquiescence in the thing that is, and too little faith or enthusiasm for
the thing that ought to be. But we shall make something of him yet. He
has read "Gold" and understands it. That is already a beginning. Bring
him again. I shall always be glad to see him here.'
'I will,' said Ernest, 'and I believe the more you know him, Herr Max,

the better you will like him.'
'And what did you think of the sons of the prophets?' asked Herbert Le
Breton of Oswald as they left the salon at the close of the reception.
'Frankly speaking,' answered Oswald, looking half aside at Ernest, 'I
didn't quite care for all of them--the Nihilists and Communards took
my breath away at first; but as to Max Schurz himself I think there can
be only one opinion possible about him.'
'And that is----?'
'That he's a magnificent old man, with a genuine apostolic inspiration. I
don't care twopence whether he is right or wrong, but he's a perfectly
splendid old fellow, as honest and transparent as the day's long. He
believes in it all, and would give his life for it freely, if he thought he
could forward the cause a single inch by doing it.'
'You're quite right,' said Herbert calmly. 'He's an Elijah thrown blankly
upon these prosaic latter days; and what's more, his gospel's all true;
but it doesn't matter a sou to you or me, for it will never come about in
our time, no nor for a century after. "Post nos millennium." So what on
earth's the good of our troubling our poor overworked heads about it?'
'He's the only really great man I ever knew,' said Ernest enthusiastically,
'and I consider that his friendship's the one thing in my life that has
been really and truly worth living for. If a pessimist were to ask me
what was the use of human existence, I should give him