On (Essays Collection) - Hilaire Belloc

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these things. The Economist, not a little inspired as the evening deepened, remembered and even invented names, figures, cases that showed the growing unity of the industrial world; the Psychologist equally inspired, and with an equal increase of fervour, drew picture after picture, each more vivid and convincing than the last, of man caught in the tangle of imaginary motive and unobedient to any industrial control, unless that control could by some miracle be given the quality of universal tyranny.

      Music was added to their debate, and subtly changed, as it must always change, the colour of thought. In the street without a man with a fine baritone voice, which evidently he had failed through vice or carelessness to exploit with success, sang songs of love and war, and at his side there accompanied him a little organ upon wheels which a weary woman played. The rich notes of his voice filled “The Lord Benthorpe” through the opened windows of that hot night, and drowned or modified the differences of cabmen and others in the Public Bar; as he sang the two disputants rose almost to the lyric in their enthusiasm, the one for the new world that was so soon to be, the other for that gloomy art of his by which he read the hearts of men and saw their doom.

      * * * * *

      It has been remarked by many that we mortals are surrounded by coincidence, and least observe Fate at its nearest approach, so that friends meet or leave us unexpectedly, and that the accidents of our lives make part of a continual play. So it was with these two. For as they warmly debated, and one of them had upset and broken his glass while the other lay back repeating again and again some favourite phrase, a third was on his way to meet them. A man much older than either, a man who did nothing at all and lived when his sister remembered him, was in that neighbourhood, vaguely wandering and feeling in every pocket for a coin. His hand trembled with age, and also a little with anxiety, but to his great joy he felt at last through the lining of his coat a large round hardness, and very carefully searching through a tear, and aided by the light that shone from the windows of “The Lord Benthorpe,” he discovered and possessed half a crown. With that he entered in, for he knew that his friends were there. In what respect he held them, their accomplishments, and their public fame, I need not say, for that respect is always paid by the simple to the learned. He sat by them at the little table, drinking also, and for some minutes listened to their stream of affirmation and of vision, but soon he shook his head in a quavering senile way, as he very vaguely caught the drift of their contention. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick,” he said.... “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick!... Can’t take away what a man’s got ... ’tis wrawng!... ’Vide it up, all the same next week.... Same hands! Same hands!” he went on foolishly wagging his head, and still smiling almost like an imbecile. “All in the same hands again in a week!... ’Vide it up ever so much.” They neglected him and continued their ardent debate, and as they flung repeated bolts of theory he, their new companion, still murmured to himself the security of established things and the ancient doctrine of ownership and of law.

      But now the night and the stars had come to their appointed hour, and the ending which is decreed of all things had come also to their carousal. A young man of energy stood before them in his shirt sleeves, crying, “Time, Time!” as a voice might cry “Doom!” and, by force of crying and of orders, “The Lord Benthorpe” was emptied, and there was silence at last behind its shutters and its bolted doors.

      These three, not yet in a mood for sleep, sauntered together westward through the vast landed estates of London, westward, to their distant homes.

      THE ECONOMIST

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      A gentleman possessing some three thousand acres of land, the most of it contiguous, one field with another, or, as he himself, his agent, his bailiff, his wife, his moneylender, and others called it, “in a ring fence,” was in the habit of asking down to the country at Christmas time some friend or friends, though more usually a friend than friends, because the income he received from the three thousand acres of land had become extremely small.

      He was especially proud of those of his friends who lived neither by rent from land nor from the proceeds of their business, but by mental activity in some profession, and of none was he prouder than of an Economist whom he had known for more than forty years; for they had been at school together and later at college. Now this Economist was a very hearty, large sort of a man, and he made an amply sufficient income by writing about economics and by giving economic advice in the abstract to politicians, and economic lectures and expert economic evidence; in fact, there was no limit to his earnings except that imposed by time and the necessity for sleep. He was not married and could spend all his earnings upon himself—which he did. He was tall, lean, and active, with bright vivacious eyes and an upstanding manner. He had two sharp and healthy grey whiskers upon either side of his face; his hair was also grey but curly; and altogether he was a vigorous fellow. There was nothing in economic science hidden from him.

      This Economist, therefore, and his friend the Squire (who was a short, fat, and rather doleful man) were walking over the wet clay land which one of them owned and on which the other talked. There was a clinging mist of a very light sort, so that you could not see more than about a mile. The trees upon that clay were small and round, and from their bare branches and twigs the mist clung in drops; where the bushes were thick and wherever evergreens afforded leaves, these drops fell with a patter that sounded almost like rain. There were no hills in the landscape and the only thing that broke the roll of the clay of the park land was the house, which was called a castle; and even this they could not see without turning round, for they were walking away from it. But even to look at this house did not raise the heart, for it was very hideous and had been much neglected on account of the lessening revenue from the three thousand acres of land. Great pieces of plaster had fallen off, nor had anything been continually repaired except the windows.

      The Economist strode and the Squire plodded on over the wet grass, and it gave the Squire pleasure to listen to the things which the Economist said, though these were quite incomprehensible to him. They came to a place where, after one had pushed through a tall bramble hedge and stuck in a very muddy hidden ditch, one saw before one on the farther side, screened in everywhere and surrounded by a belt or frame of low, scraggy trees and stunted bushes, a large deserted field. In colour it was very pale green and brown; myriads of dead thistles stood in it; there were nettles, and, in the damper hollows, rushes growing. The Economist took this field and turned his voluble talk upon it. He appreciated that much he said during their walk, being sometimes of an abstract and always of a technical nature, had missed the mind of his friend; he therefore determined upon a concrete instance and waved his vigorous long arm towards the field and said:

      “Now, take this field, for instance.”

      “Yes,” said the Squire humbly.

      “Now, this field,” said the Economist, “of itself has no value at all.”

      “No,” said the Squire.

      “That,” said the Economist with increasing earnestness, tapping one hand with two fingers of the other, “that’s what the layman must seize first ... every error in economics comes from not appreciating that things in themselves have no value. For instance,” he went on, “you would say that a diamond had value, wouldn’t you ... a large diamond?”

      The Squire, hoping to say the right thing, said: “I suppose not.”

      This annoyed the Economist, who answered a little testily: “I don’t know what you mean. What I mean is that the diamond has no value in itself....”

      “I see,” broke in the Squire, with an intelligent look, but the Economist went on rapidly as though he had not spoken:

      “It only has a value because it has been transposed in some way from the position where man could not use it to a position where he can. Now, you would say that land could not be transposed, but it can be made from less useful to man, more useful to man.”

      The Squire admitted this, and breathed a deep breath.

      “Now,”

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