Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 3 of 3

‘But let us hear what her ladyship has to say,’ said Buxton.

‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

‘A regenerated State.’

‘Ah, there is need for it,’ she said. ‘But how are you to get it? That is the question.’

‘Oh, nothing is easier. Buy a farm in Essex and form there a model society.’

‘With a cheap train to take your people to London in an hour or two? That will never do.’

‘Well, then, let us go to Canada and plant our Utopia there.’

‘And fail, as others have done,’ said she.

‘But we shall take picked men and women, and with them we cannot fail.’

‘But they are not immortal.’

‘Happily,’ said Buxton, ‘none of us are that. We’ve all got to die and make room for the new generation.’

‘And can you answer for the new generation?’ asked Rose, ‘that they will remain shut up in your Utopia to labour, not each for himself, but for mutual benefit; that they will conform to your ideas as regards drinking and matrimony; that no selfish passion will run riot; that no serpent will come into that paradise to tempt another Eve; that the new Adam will be wiser than the old one?’

‘Why, I thought you were in favour of the idea,’ said her husband.

‘But I am a woman.’

‘And therefore have a full right to change your opinion,’ added Buxton.

‘Of course, there must be some failures. It is by them we learn how to succeed,’ replied Wentworth. ‘We learn from the failure of past organizations the way to form better and more successful ones. Are there not successful Shaker settlements in America?’

‘You make me laugh,’ said the lady.

‘This is no laughing matter. We are very much in earnest.’

‘Well, if you are in earnest, let me have the selection of the candidates for the new society.’

‘Very good; but I am afraid you will only pass the good-looking ones, and forget the old time-honoured maxim that “handsome is as handsome does.”’

‘A maxim I laugh to scorn.’

‘Of course you do.’

‘Well, you want healthy men and women, don’t you? And good looks are only to be found with physical health. It is by over-eating and over-drinking and over-working that you get a diseased and ugly race. Go to our east coast seaside resorts and see what fine men and women there are there. Contrast them with the operatives of the mine and factory. They scarcely seem to belong to the same race. A good-looking girl is happier than a plain one. You men are all for good looks. A fine physical organization indicates something more desirable. Nor do I blame them. “The soul is form, and doth the body make.” The homage we pay to beauty in man or woman is but rational. What made Alcibiades a power in Athens but his good looks? Did not Jew and Greek alike agree in doing honour to Adonis? The outward form indicates the inner disposition. If men are to have a brighter world we must people it with brighter people. But I think on the whole you had better stop where you are. Society in one way does improve. Progress is slow – but institutions are hard to remove, bad habits harder still. Why go out into the wilderness to teach people to be content with an agricultural life? Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Better to bear the ills we have than fly to those we know not of.’

‘Your ladyship is poetical!’

‘Not a bit of it – only practical, as we women always are when you men are up in the clouds. I believe, as soon as the peasant has got back to the hind, we shall have a new era for England, I believe the agricultural labourer who is helped to emigrate to Canada can better his condition at once. But I am not an agricultural labourer. I have no wish to pass my days in milking cows and rearing poultry; I have no wish to pass my days thousands of miles away from London, or Paris, or Rome. Am I not the heir of all the ages underneath the sun? I am for stopping at home and doing all the good I can. I do not feel called upon to dress like a guy, as the Shaker women do; nor do I see how you can make any settlement that can last. It may succeed for a time, if the conditions are favourable, and you select the men and women whom you take out. But as the old ones die off and the young people grow up there will be all sorts of difficulties. Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge had similar dreams. It was fortunate for them and the world that they were unable to carry them out. They did much better work at home. As long as human nature remains what it is we must build on the old lines.’

‘How then, would you regenerate society?’

‘By the regeneration of the individual. What is society but a collection of men? Save the man and the mass are saved. Buxton believes in science; Wentworth, you believe in politics. Well, both are means to an end; but more is required.’

‘And that is?’

‘Christ in the heart.’

‘Rather an exploded idea in these enlightened times. Why, you take us back to the dark ages!’ said Buxton.

‘Dark ages, indeed! At any rate they were ages of faith – when men believed in God, and did mighty works. Alas! we have no such men now.’

‘And why not?’

‘Because this is the age of material organization, of mechanical progress, of the exaltation of the mass over the individual, of an artificial equality; an age that has lost faith, an age of despair, when the rich man cries “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;” when the statesman recklessly legislates, believing “After me the deluge;” when the people “feed on lies.” “The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehendeth it not.”’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Wentworth, ‘I feel inclined to make a start in Canada. Rose, I know, will come after a little pressing; and if you will come with us, I have a friend who has placed some land at my disposal. I have found some men and women of the right stamp who are ready to emigrate. They live in unhealthy homes, they have bad food, and are diseased in consequence. They are surrounded by evil companions, and that leads them into crime. Man is, to a certain extent, the creature of circumstance.

‘Yes, that is too true,’ replied Buxton; ‘but what do you propose as the remedy?’

‘Well, that is what I am coming to. Remove the pauper, place him in a new world, and with better surroundings, and he will become a better man. My friend is quite prepared to do so; he is ready to help the poor to emigrate to the colonies or America.’

‘But if the colonies or America will not have them, what are you to do? They may object – in fact, they do object to the poor of this country being thrown destitute and helpless on their shores.’

‘That is true; but my friend is resolved to send out only deserving men and women whose characters will be carefully inquired into, and to send them out under competent guides. He proposes to buy a large estate in some eligible part of the world, where land is cheap, where the climate is healthy, and where all that is wanted to develop the fruits of the earth, and to ensure health and happiness to the people, is human labour. Of course, he does not propose to deal with the masses; but he has an idea, that if he makes an attempt and it succeeds, other wealthy and benevolent men will follow his example, and thus the amount of crime, and misery, and poverty in England may be diminished.’

‘But why not try such a scheme in England?’

‘The expense is too great; the rates and taxes are too heavy, and the difficulties created by land-laws and lawyers are too great. Besides, there would always be the danger of the men breaking away in sudden fits of ill-humour and discontent, and getting back to their old bad habits and evil companionship. They must leave all the evils of the old world behind them and start clear. You will come with us, Buxton?’

‘With all my heart,’ was the reply.