Author: Scott Mannion

“Certain it is men have fallen upon each other from the first. This is a business which the Gods lay upon the Young; leaving the Old to weary with words the unreturning phalanx.” What put the idea of drill into man’s head at the beginning of things? As Shakespeare so beautifully observes, “What made man first drill upon the Square, with Sergeants running round and round?”… what does drill come to? This—the step, which includes keeping step—the line, by which I mean any sort of line, close or extended—the wheel, which includes a line changing direction—and, most important of all, because it is the foundation that makes every move possible, forming fours. There you have it all, gentlemen—the four sides of the Magic Square. The Step and keeping step—the Line, close or extended—Wheeling and changing direction—and Forming Fours. S.W.L.F. So We Learned Fighting. Side by side with the practical drill, or rehearsal for the business of hunting and war, there developed the rudiments of what, later on, became ceremonial drill. Why? Here is my reason. The natural instinct of a man, after he has done anything worth talking about, is to talk about it; and Primordial man was extremely natural. When he had finished a successful day’s hunting or had cleverly knocked an enemy on the head, he went home and told his wife and the children all about it. Like all persons with a limited vocabulary, he had to act most of his story and piece it out, precisely as children do, with innumerable repetitions of the same word. His tale wouldn’t grow less in the telling. Tales don’t. His actual fight was probably a crude affair; but he would act it at home before the family with stately leaps and bounds to represent the death-scuffle, and with elaborate wavings of his club and thrustings with his lance to show how he did his man in. At the end of his story there would certainly be a solemn walk round the fire to let the females admire him and the young bloods be impressed with him. You can take it that when a male animal has accomplished a kill of any kind, he generally indulges in a sort of triumphal demonstration—a tense, highly braced walk or promenade round and above the carcass, especially if there is a female of his species near by. At the very first, he was only the hairy, low-browed head of a family, he would declaim and prance alone. Later, as the families grew into groups and tribes, the other men who had assisted at the hunt or the battle would have their say, and their shout, and their walk-round, in the open spaces before the caves. It may be that the idea of forming fours was first originated at those processional walk-rounds where there was open space to manœuvre and safety in which to correct errors. You can imagine how, as these men danced and leaped, they would all sing like children: “This is the way we kill a bison. This is how we stand up to a tiger. This is how we tackle men.” The drama would be accepted as the real thing by the women and the juniors, till at last the bison, or the tiger, or the man-killing charade would become a religious ceremonial—a thing to be acted, said, or sung before going up to battle or chase, with invoca tions to great hunters in the past, and so on. It would end by being a magic ritual, sure to bring good luck if it was properly performed. And so far as that ritual, with its dances, and chants, and stampings, and marches round, gave the men cohesion and confidence, it would go far towards success in the field. That principle holds good to this day. I was at Edinburgh Castle a few weeks ago, watching a squad marching in slow time, and doing it rather badly. The instructor told ’em so. Then he said: “You’re lazy! You’re lazy! Point that toe! There’s not a fut among ye!” It is hard work trying to get recruits to reproduce in cold blood, on a cold morning, in cold boots, something of the wonderful grace and poise and arrested motion of the bare-footed, perfectly balanced, perfectly healthy primitive man rejoicing over his kill. The nearest thing I ever saw to the genuine article must have been sham-fight among Kaffirs in a compound at the Kimberley Diamond-fields. It finished with a walk-round in slow time, and I remember that every Kaffir’s foot shot out as straight as the forefoot of a trotting horse. You could almost hear the hip and knee and ankle joint click as the toe was pointed. Now, it’s a far cry from a Kaffir compound to a Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace; but if you stand three-quarters on to the Colours as they come out of the gate with the Guard, you’ll catch just a far-off shadow of what the march in slow time originally sprung from, and what it meant. …Pass on a few thousand, or hundred thousand years, and we reach the beginnings of some sort of civilisation. By this time man has begun to specialise in his work. Everybody doesn’t hunt; everybody doesn’t fight; everybody doesn’t prepare his own food or make his own weapons for himself. Experience has shown mankind that it is more convenient to tell off certain men for these duties. Here we come to a curious fact in human nature. As soon as any man is detailed for a particular job—that is to say, a duty that he has to perform for somebody else’s sake—he gets, whether he likes it or not, the beginnings of an ideal of conduct. He may loathe the job; but that reasoning mind that I’ve mentioned makes him uncomfortable in himself if he neglects the job. The worst of it is that any being who knows what he is doing, remembers what he has done, and can estimate the probable consequence of what he is going to do, knows also what he ought to do. That’s the beginning of Conscience. I grant you it’s an infernal nuisance; but it’s true. As a compensation, all men have a tendency to glorify and make much of their own special duty, no matter how humble they or the job may be. But the primitive warrior was far from humble. He was a man set apart by his strength, skill, or courage, for work on which the very existence of his tribe depended. As such, he was entitled to extra or more varied rations in order that he might do that work properly. Primitive tribes at the present day have long lists of certain foods and special portions of game which are forbidden to be eaten by the women, or by the men before they come to manhood. The fighting men of the tribe are freed from any restrictions on this head, and the best cuts and joints are reserved for them—like the Captain’s Wing. Three years ago, scientific men called these restrictions the outcome of savage superstition. Now, we have food-regulations of our own, and, you will observe, the rationing of the Army and Navy is the most important matter of all, because the safety of the tribe depends upon it. Besides these advantages, the primitive fighting man had behind him an enormous mass of tradition and ritual, and song and dance and ceremony handed down through generation to generation from prehistoric days, which dealt with everything that he did in the performance of his duties or in the preparation for his duties. The crude drills and hunting rehearsals of George Robey’s time had developed into complicated sacred dances of fabulous antiquity. Every detail connected with war had its special rite or incantation. The warrior himself, his clothes, the paints he used for personal decoration, his weapons, his form of attack, his particular fashion of marking or mutilating his enemy after death, his war-cry, the charms that protected him in battle—were all matters of the deepest importance on which the best brains of mankind had spent centuries and centuries of thought, with the object—conscious or unconscious—of creating and improving the morale of the individual set apart to fight for the tribe. To-day, these rituals have faded out of the memory of civilised mankind altogether. But, in spite of time and change, one can still trace in our modern days shadows here and there of customs and ceremonial dating from the birth of time—customs which still persist among us because, mark you, they concern the individual and collective morale of the warrior—the man set apart to fight for the safety of the tribe. I give you three instances. I. It is an offence to draw one’s sword in Mess, just as it is a gross liberty to examine or handle any man’s sword without first asking his permission. Why? Because the Sword is, above all weapons, the most ancient and most holy. Why? Because it was the terrible weapon with the cutting edge and the thrusting point which first superseded the stick and the club among mankind, and gave the tribes that had it power over the tribes that had not. The old fairy-tales of magic swords that cut off people’s heads of themselves run back to that dim and distant date when some sword-using tribe broke in upon and scuppered some tribe of club-using primitives. Through thousands and thousands of years the Sword—the manufactured weapon which cannot be extemporised out of a branch, like the club; nor out of a branch and a strip of leather or sinew like the bow—this expensive hand-made Sword has been personal to its owner, slung to his body by day, ready to his hand by night, a thing prayed over and worshipped—the visible shrine, so to speak, of the personal honour of the man who wielded it—the weapon set apart for the man who is set apart for the business of war. II. It is an offence to mention a woman’s name in Mess. Why? Because the warrior’s work being war, and the one thing furthest from war being woman, it follows that at no time since fighting began was the warrior encouraged to think of women while preparing for, or engaged in, his job. Because, when the warrior went to war, he was forbidden—as he is forbidden to-day among savages—to have anything to do with women for a certain length of time before starting. The idea of women, and therefore, the name of any woman, was considered distracting, weakening, to a warrior, and for that reason was absolutely forbidden—tabu—to him not only in the field, but also in his ceremonial gatherings with his equals—the men set apart for the business of war. III. It is extraordinarily difficult to prevent ragging in the Army. Why? Because as soon as men were set apart for the work of fighting, it was necessary for them to find out the character, powers of endurance, and resistance to pain of the young men who from time to time joined them. For that reason, there grew up all the world over, a system of formally initiating young men into the tribe by a series of tests, varying in severity, which ranged—as they do among primitive tribes to-day—from mere flogging to being hung, head down, over smoke, burning on various parts of the body, or being swung from the ground by hooks inserted through their muscles. There were also other tests—spiritual as well as physical. You can see a trace of them in the mediaeval idea of the candidate for knighthood watching his arms before the altar of a church, generally full of tombs, from sunset to sunrise. Men reasoned logically enough: “If a man can’t stand our peacetime tests, he’ll fail us in war. Let’s see what he can stand.” Nowadays, young men argue—or, rather, they don’t argue, they feel: “So-and-so looks rather an ass; or is rather a beast; or carries too much side. Let’s rag him.” Then they turn his room inside out, or rub harness-paste into his hair, or sit him in a bath, or make him dance the fox-trot, as the case may be. If he loses his temper he falls in their opinion. If he keeps it, and pays back the rag with interest later on, they say he is a good sort. I’m not defending ragging—I’ve known cases where everyone who took part in it ought to have been R.T.U. 2 I’m only giving you the primitive reason for the performance which to-day has been watered down into a “rag”. It rose out of a test that was of vital importance to the men who were set apart for the business of war. I have tried to make clear that even from the earliest ages, the warrior has been a man set apart for a definite purpose, and surrounded by a definite ritual from which, as you know, he is not permitted to escape. The reason for this is very simple. I will summarise it. The earliest drill was born of the tactics, first of hunting, then of war. The notion of hunting and fighting in accordance with some preconceived plan—that is to say, an ideal of conduct—was developed and taught in the ceremonial drills and dances before and after hunting and fighting. Then came the period of specialisation, when certain men fought for the tribe—in other words, offered themselves as sacrifices for the tribe. They hoped, of course, to sacrifice the enemy; but if they failed in that, their own bodies, their own lives, would be the sacrifice. People who think a great deal and know very little will tell you that mankind, as a rule, don’t take kindly to the idea of sacrificing themselves unless there is an advantage to be gained from it. But it is worth noting that there is hardly any people in the world so degraded that it cannot appreciate the idea of sacrifice in others, and there are few races or tribes in the world whose legends of their origin or whose religion does not include the story of some tremendous sacrifice made by a hero or demi-god for their sakes. Most of the stories describe at length how the hero or demi-god prepared himself for the sacrifice. Now, if you think for a moment, you will see that there were only two people in the tribe who were permanently and officially concerned in the theory and practice of sacrifice. They were the Priest, who was also the doctor or the medicine man; and the fighting-man. The Priest knew the charms and spells that would protect the warrior from hurt in battle, as well as the herbs and dressings that would cure him if he were hurt. Most important of all, he knew how the warrior would stand with the Gods of the tribe after his death. If he had died well, the Gods would be pleased. If he had died badly, the Gods would be angry. In other words, whatever ideals of conduct existed in the tribe, the Priest upheld them. The Priest sacrificed fruits, animals, or human beings to the spirits of the great hunters and fighters of old. And because savages are not infidels, he sacrificed also to the unknown gods, who are above all the demi-gods. But the warrior, remember, stood ready to sacrifice himself. He more than any other needed preparation and setting apart for his task. If one compares the ritual and the code of conduct required of the Priest with that required of the warrior, one is struck by the curious likeness between them, even at the present time. The good Priest is required to offer up prayer several times a day, wherever he may be. This is to remind him that he is in a service. Twice a day in peace-time the Soldier has to appear on parade; and the more desolate and God-forsaken his station or post is, the more strict and formal ought the parade to be—for the good of his soul! Most religions demand that the Priest shall be clean and purified by actual or ceremonial washing before he can take part in any service or sacrifice. I needn’t tell you what happens to the Soldier who appears on parade in a condition which is technically called “dirty”. The textbooks say that cleanliness and neatness of clothing make for “smartness”. They don’t inform us what “smartness” signified originally. It meant the absolute cleanliness and purity, so far as was possible, of the man who might himself be the sacrifice for his tribe. Again, the good Priest is responsible not only for the proper use but for the proper care and keeping of the linen, the vestments, the vessels, the images, and the lights employed in the ritual of his religion. Every one of them must be dealt with, handled, and put away in a certain prescribed manner with certain prescribed motions, that the priest may not at any time be led to treat them as common things. Has anyone here ever had to attend kit-inspection? Well, the earliest kit-inspection began when the earliest hunter or warrior laid out his poor little weapons, his charms, and his food-pouch on the ground in front of him, counted them, and prayed over them, for they were all he had to take him through life. I’ve never heard of any man praying at kit-inspection since—unless he prayed that the inspecting officer might be struck blind. Once more, at any hour of the day or night, the good Priest must leave whatever he is doing, so long as it is not the service of his God, and go to any member of his flock who needs him, on the death-bed, or the sick-bed, in trouble of mind, family quarrel, misfortune, or weariness of spirit. So I have seen an Officer put down his drink untasted—the first in twelve hours—and go off to see that his men were properly settled in their billets and lacked nothing that his help or his authority could supply them. Lastly, however often the Priest enters, leaves, or crosses the holy building of his faith, he must pay due acknowledgement and reverence to the altar or the shrine there. This is that he may not forget, however busy he is, the Spirit Whom he serves. I watched an old Priest in Italy once tidying up an empty church. He knelt and crossed himself before the altar twenty-three times in half an hour as he pottered about. When the war was young, I walked once with a private soldier in London, and he told me what drove him nearly crazy was what he called the “incessant, foolish, unnecessary, snobbish” saluting. I told the young ’un what I am telling you now—that the Salute was the most important and ancient piece of symbolism invented for the deepest of spiritual reasons, many, many thousand years ago. Originally, it must have been the right hand of the armed man raised high to testify to a companion that he was there. “Behold me! I am the sacrifice.” In the course of years the violent gesture has been softened down—except among children at school when they want to show that they know the answer to a question. The hand has been dropped to the level of the forehead; but you will observe that the palm of the hand is turned outwards. That is the sign of giving, not of keeping back. If the Salute were, or ever had been a sign of servility, the palm of the hand would have been turned to the inside and slightly hollowed, and the head also would have been bent forward; because that attitude is the immemorial instinctive sign of abasement, which is fear, among all the races of mankind. As it is, the gesture of the Salute is no more than the armed man indicating himself as one of the brotherhood of the sacrifice, and, curiously enough, the higher-spirited the regiment, the keener its tradition and its instinct of service, the more tense and emphatic is the motion of the indicating right hand. Now, gentlemen, I have tried to give you the rough outline of how Drill was born; how it developed through untold ages; and a little of what it signifies. Many of my ideas will strike you as absurd and fantastic; but, if you think them over, you will see that they are at bottom only an expansion or explanation of the first few paragraphs of Infantry training. Things are said to change in the world. To a certain extent, they do; but the changes are largely confined to making wheels turn faster and throwing weights farther than our ancestors did. The one thing that does not change, as far as we know it, is human nature. What the earliest man faced at the beginning, we have to face now. There were wonders and terrors of death, darkness, fire and lightning, frost, blood, and destruction, all about him. He faced them with such weapons as were within his knowledge, and he supplemented his weapons with what skill and craft life taught him. But behind all was his indomitable soul, the spirit of man that knows what it ought to do, even though it loathes doing it, without which he would have fallen back to be a beast among beasts again. And, in the meantime, what has happened to the Magic Square I began to talk about? I’ve neglected it for a little. Before we dismiss, let’s t run over its outlines again on the blackboard, and make them clearer. Here, as I said, is the Line; here is the Step and the Wheel; and here, at the bottom, the foundation of all, is Forming Fours. You see? Do you notice any other change? There isn’t one, really, because, as I have said, man changes little; but it seems to me that the Magic Square has developed quite simply and naturally into the Altar of Sacrifice. Look! The letters are just the same: S.W.L.F. But the altar is based on Faith, by which we live; it is supported by Wisdom and Strength; and it is crowned by Sacrifice, which is the highest form of Love. So you see: Faith, Wisdom, Strength, and Love—make the Altar of Sacrifice for the Man set apart to save his Tribe.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

“To catch Dame Fortune’s golden smile     Assiduous wait upon her, And gather gold by every wile     That’s justified by honour— Not for to hide it in a hedge     Nor for the train attendant, But for the glorious privilege     Of being independent.” Independence means, “Let every herring hang by its own head”. It signifies the blessed state of hanging on to as few persons and things as possible, and it leads up to the singular privilege of a man owning himself…  …Remember always that, except for the appliances we make, the rates at which we move ourselves and our possessions through space, and the words which we use, nothing in life changes. The utmost any generation can do is to rebaptize each spiritual or emotional rebirth in its own tongue. Then it goes to its grave hot and bothered, because no new birth has been vouchsafed for its salvation, or even its relief. And your generation succeeds to an unpromising and dishevelled heritage. In addition to your own sins, which will be numerous but quite normal, you have to carry the extra handicap of the sins of your fathers. This, it is possible that many of you have already made clear to your immediate circle. But the point you probably omitted (as our generation did when we used to deliver our magnificent, unpublished orations De Juventute) is, that no shortcomings on the part of others can save us from the consequences of our own shortcomings. The past few years have so immensely quickened and emphasised all means of communication, visible and invisible, in every direction, that our world—which is only another name for the Tribe—is not merely “too much with us”, but moves, shouts, and moralises about our path and our bed through every hour of our days and nights. Even a normal world might become confusing on these terms, and ours is far from being normal. One-sixth of its area has passed bodily out of civilisation; and much of the remainder appears to be divided, with no consciousness of sin, between an earnest intention to make Earth Hell as soon as possible, and an equally earnest intention, with no consciousness of presumption, to make it Heaven on or before the same date. But you will have ample opportunities of observing this for yourselves. The broad and immediate result—partly through a recent necessity for thinking and acting in large masses, partly through the instinct of mankind to draw together and cry out when calamity hits them, and very largely through the quickening of communications—is that the power of the Tribe over the individual has become more extended, particular, pontifical, and, using the word in both senses, impertinent, than it has been for many generations. Some men accept this omnipresence of crowds; some may resent it. It is to the latter that I am speaking. The independence that was a “glorious privilege” in Robert Burns’s day is now more difficult to achieve than when one had merely to overcome a few material obstacles and the rest followed almost automatically. Nowadays, to own oneself in any decent measure, one has to run counter to a gospel, and to fight against its atmosphere; and an atmosphere, so long as it can be kept up, is rather cloying. Even so, there is no need for the individual who intends to own himself to be too pessimistic. Let us, as our forefathers used, count our blessings. You, my constituents, enjoy three special ones. First, thanks to the continuity of self-denial on the part of your own forbears, the bulk of you will enter professions and callings in which you will be free men—free to be paid what your work is worth in the open market, irrespective of your alleged merits or your needs. Free, moreover, to work without physical molestation of yourself or your family as long and as closely as you please; free to exploit your own powers and your own health to the uttermost for your own ends. Your second blessing is that you carry in your land’s history and in your hearts the strongest instinct of inherited continuity, which expresses itself in your passionate interest in your own folk and all its values…  …at intervals your culture, more than others, feels the necessity for owning itself. Therefore, it returns in groups to its heather, where, under camouflage of “games” and “gatherings”, it fortifies itself with the rites, passwords, raiment, dances, food, and drink of its ancestors and reinitiates itself into its primal individualism… And that same strength is your third and chief blessing. I have already touched on the privilege of being broken by birth, custom, precept, and example to “doing without things”. There is where the sons of the small houses, who have borne the yoke in their youth, hold a cumulative advantage over those who have been accustomed to life with broad margins. Such men can, and do, accommodate themselves to straitened circumstances at a pinch and for an object; but they are as aware of their efforts afterward as an untrained man is aware of his muscles on the second morning of a walking-tour; and when they have won through what they consider hardship they are apt to waste good time and place by subconsciously approving, or even remembering, their own efforts. On the other hand, the man who has been used to shaving, let us say, in cold water at seven o’clock the year round, takes what one may call the minor damnabilities of life in his stride without either making a song about them or writing home about them. And that is the chief reason why the untrained man always has to pay more for the privilege of owning himself than the man trained to the little things. It is the little things, in microbes or morale, that make us, as it is the little things that break us. Also, men in any walk of life who have been taught not to waste or muddle material under their hand are less given to muddle or mishandle moral, intellectual, and emotional issues than men whose wastage has never been checked, or who look to have their wastage made good by others. The proof is plain. Among the generations that have preceded you at this University were men of your own blood—many, and many—who did their work on the traditional sack of peasemeal or oatmeal behind the door—weighed out and measured with their own hands against the cravings of their natural appetites. These were men who intended to own themselves, in obedience to some dream, teaching, or word which had come to them. They knew that it would be a hard and long task, so they set about it with their own iron rations on their own backs: and they walked along the sands here to pick up driftwood to keep the fire going in their lodgings. Now what, in this world or the next, can the world, or any Tribe in it, do with or to people of this temper? Bribe them by good dinners to take larger views on life? They would probably see their hosts under the table first and argue their heads off afterward. Offer ’em money to shed a conviction or two? A man doesn’t lightly sell what he has paid for with his hide. Stampede them or coax them or threaten them into countenancing the issue of false weights and measures? It is a little hard to liberalise persons who have done their own weighing and measuring with broken teacups by the light of tallow candles. No! Those thrifty souls must have been a narrow and an anfractuous breed to handle; but, by their God, in Whose Word they walked, they owned themselves! And their ownership was based upon the truth that if you have not your own rations you must feed out of your Tribe’s hands: with all that that implies. Should any of you care to own yourselves on these lines your insurances ought to be effected in those first ten years of a young man’s life, when he is neither seen nor heard. This is the period—one mostly spends it in lodgings alone—which corresponds to the time when man in the making began to realise that he was himself and not another. The post-war world which discusses so fluently and frankly the universality and cogency of Sex as the dominant factor of life has adopted a reserved and modest attitude in its handling of the imperious and inevitable details of mere living and working. I will respect that attitude. The initial payments on the policy of one’s independence, then, must be financed, by no means for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith towards oneself, primarily out of the drinks that one does not too continuously take; the maidens in whom one does not too extravagantly rejoice; the entertainments that one does not too systematically attend or conduct; the transportation one does not too magnificently employ; the bets one does not too generally place, and the objects of beauty and desire that one does not too generously buy. Secondarily, those revenues can be added to by extra work undertaken at hours before or after one’s regular work, when one would infinitely rather rest or play. That involves the question of how far you can drive yourself without breaking down, and if you do break down how soon you can recover and carry on again. This is for you to judge, and to act accordingly. No one regrets—no one has regretted—more than I that these should be the terms of the policy. It would better suit the spirit of the age if personal independence could be guaranteed for all by some form of co-ordinated action combined with public assistance and so forth. Unfortunately, there are still a few things in this world that a man must manage for himself; his own independence is one of them; and the obscure, repeated shifts and contrivances and abstentions necessary to the manufacture of it are too personal and intimate to expose to the inspection of any Department, however sympathetic. If you have a temperament that can accommodate itself to cramping your style while you are thus saving, you are lucky. But, any way, you will be more or less uncomfortable until it presently dawns on you that you have put enough by to give you food and housing for, say, one week ahead. It is both sedative and anti-spasmodic—it makes for calm in the individual and forbearance towards the Tribe—to know that you hold even seven days’ potential independence in reserve—and owed to no man. One is led on to stretch that painfully extorted time to one month if possible; and as one sees that this is possible, the possibilities grow. Bit by bit, one builds up and digs oneself into a base whence one can move in any direction, and fall back upon in any need. The need may be merely to sit still and consider, as did our first ancestors, what manner of animal we are; or it may be to cut loose at a minute’s notice from a situation which has become intolerable or unworthy; but, whatever it may be, it is one’s own need, and the opportunity of meeting it has been made by one’s own self. After all, yourself is the only person you can by no possibility get away from in this life, and, may be, in another. It is worth a little pains and money to do good to him. For it is he, and not our derivatively educated minds or our induced emotions, who preserves in us the undefeated senior instinct of independence. You can test this by promising yourself not to do a thing, and noticing the scandalous amount of special pleading that you have to go through with yourself if you break your promise. A man does not always remember, or follow up, the great things that he has promised himself or his friends to do; but he rarely forgets or forgives when he had promised himself not to do even a little thing. This is because man has lived with himself as an individual vastly longer than he has lived with himself under Tribal conditions. Consequently, facts about his noble solitary self and his earliest achievements had time to get well fixed in his memory. He knew he was not altogether one with the beasts. His amazing experiences with his first lie had shown him that he was something of a magician, if not a miracle-worker; and his first impulse towards self-denial for ends not immediately in sight must have been a revelation of himself to himself as stupendous as a belief in a future life, which it was possibly intended to herald. It is only natural, then, that individuals who first practised this apparently insane and purposeless exercise came later to bulk in the legends of their tribe as demigods, who went forth and bearded the gods themselves for gifts—for fire, wisdom, or knowledge of the arts. But one thing that stands outside exaggeration or belittlement, through all changes in shapes of things and the sounds of words, is the bidding, the guidance that drives a man to own himself and upholds him through his steps on that road. The bidding comes, direct as a beam of light, from that past when man had grown into his present shape, which past, could we question it, would probably refer us to a past immeasurably remoter still, whose creature, not yet man, felt within him that it was not well for him to jackal round another brute’s kill, even if he went hungry for a while. It is not such a far cry from that Creature, howling over his empty stomach in the dark, to the Heir of all the Ages counting over his coppers in front of a cookshop to see if they will run to a full meal—as some few here have had to do; and the principle is the same—“At any price that I can pay, let me own myself”. And the price is worth paying if you keep what you have bought. For the eternal question still is whether the profit of any concession that a man makes to his Tribe, against the light that is in him, outweighs or justifies his disregard of that light. A man may apply his independence to what is called worldly advantage, and discover too late that he laboriously has made himself dependent on a mass of external conditions for the maintenance of which he sacrificed himself. So he may be festooned with the whole haberdashery of success, and go to his grave a castaway. Some men hold that the risk is worth taking. Others do not. It is to these that I have spoken. “And make the council of thy heart to stand; for there is none more faithful unto thee than it. For a man’s soul is sometime wont to bring him tidings; more than seven watchmen that sit on high on a watch-tower.”... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

“Charge the free-born sons with The Power to resist, imbue them with the spirit of heroic ages, lost; crown them with that which was stolen in First Light’s lies. Birthright of The Sovereignful, all crowned. I’ll call on Him to Knight thee: flesh made spirit, to bear its mighty weight.” “It is my duty. It is His will. It is thine blade. Begins a gentle candle in the darkest sea. To be, but to be: raging beacon, iridescent, shield for the truthful, sword for true Chosen, courage English courage to bleed that final night.”... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

“Thus An Aged Father Taught His Free-born Son”: Anglo-saxon Precepts. Thus an aged father taught his free-born son,  a mind-wise man, elderly in virtue of his kinsmen,  in perceptive words, so that he was well proud: (ll. 1-3) “Always do what best avails you, and your work will succeed.  God will always be yours, belonging to every good man  your master and comfort—the Fiend is for the others,  the worse workman. Hope for the better,  even this courage, always so long as you live.  Cherish your father and mother with your heart,  and every one of your kindred, so long as they love the Measurer.  Always be gracious to your elders, fair-worded,  and let your teachers be beloved in your spirit and mind,  those who would bolster you to good most eagerly.” (ll. 4-14) The elderly father soon challenged his son  a second time: “Keep dear this virtue!  Perform no crimes, nor ever tolerate them  in your friends or kinsmen, lest the Measurer  reproach you, as an abettor of such faults.  He may yield the punishment to you,  what belongs to others, to their prosperity.” (ll. 15-20) A third time the thought-wise man  instructed his son from his inmost treasury:  “Do not keep company with those beneath you,  to the width of your life, nor esteem any of them,  but take on that one who always speaks  in good news and teachings, counsel-minded.  About the rich, let it be just as it can be.” (ll. 21-26) A fourth time the father taught again  his mind-beloved son, so that he remembered this:  “Abandon not your most intimate friend,  but ever always keep him close—  as is rightly fitting. Perform this courtesy,  so that you never become vile to your own friend.” (ll. 27-31) A fifth time the father yet again began  to instruct his child by his breast-thoughts:  “Shelter yourself from drunken and daft words,  malicious in your mind, and lying in your mouth—  anger and spite and lechery for the ladies.  Therefore shame-minded he must often venture  who turns away from the love of his wife  for strange women. There will always be  an expectation of sin, a hateful shame—  an enduring malice towards God—  an overwhelming arrogance. Always be wise of your reasons,  wary against your desires, a warden of your words.” (ll. 32-42) A sixth time the benevolent man soon began  through blithe intentions to teach his child:  “Eagerly perceive what may be good or evil,  and distinguish them always sharp-mindedly  in your heart and ever choose the better.  It will always be parted for you—if your mind avails—  wisdom dwells within, and you know readily  the sense of evil, held against you stoutly—  care for the good in your spirit always.” (ll. 43-51) A seventh time the father taught his son,  an aged man, saying many things to the younger:  “Seldom will the wise man, though sorrowless, exult,  likewise will the fool rarely rejoice, filled with regrets,  about his destiny, unless he knows enmity.  Guarded in speech, a wisdom-fast warrior  must consider his heart, not all booming in voice.” (ll. 52-58) An eighth time the elderly father began  to admonish his son with mild words:  “Learn these precepts, suitable for instruction,  Hope for yourself in wisdom—and keep  the Shaper of Armies in your expectations,  mindful of his saints, and keep truth ever in your sight—  when you say what you say.” (ll. 59-64) A ninth time the old man addressed him,  the aged sage, saying to his own children:  “There are not many men who wish to keep  the ancient scriptures, but his mind decays,  his courage cools, discipline falling idle—  nor do they have any bit left over for that,  though they do disgrace instead of the Measurer’s commandment.  Many shall be rewarded with the soul’s torment.  Yet allow your inner heart to hold from now on  these olden writings and the judgments of the Master,  which men everywhere in this place abandon in their ambition  declining precipitously, when righteousness should be theirs.” (ll. 65-75) And for a tenth time, filled with miserable sorrows,  the older man soon began to instruct his heir:  “He enjoys wisdoms who for the love of his soul  always guards himself against disgrace of words  and deeds in his self-keeping and performs the truth—  every gift will be augmented for him, profitable  in power, when he flies away from wickedness. (ll. 76-82) “Don’t allow anger ever to control you,  cresting in your chest, or the ground of spiteful words,  to defile you with its welling-forth—  but your mind will keep him best in his heart.  A wise warrior must be moderate, keen of mind,  perceptive in his thoughts, eager for lore,  so he can gather his blessings among men. (ll. 83-89) “Don’t ever be a slanderer, nor a double-talker,  nor allow men to urge you to wickedness in your mind,  but be gracious instead, bearing a light breast-coffer  in your thoughts. And so you, my child, be mindful  of the teaching of your aged father—  and always keep yourself away from wickedness.” (ll. 90-94)... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

How much I love this writer’s manly style! By such men led, our press had ever been The public conscience of our noble isle, Severe and quick to feel a civic sin, To raise the people and chastise the times With such a heat as lives in great creative rhymes. O you, the Press! what good from you might spring! What power is yours to blast a cause or bless! I fear for you, as for some youthful king, Lest you go wrong from power in excess. Take heed of your wide privileges! we The thinking men of England, loathe a tyranny. A freeman is, I doubt not, freest here; The single voice may speak his mind aloud; An honest isolation need not fear The Court, the Church, the Parliament, the crowd. No, nor the Press! and look you well to that— We must not dread in you the nameless autocrat. And you, dark Senate of the public pen, You may not, like yon tyrant, deal in spies. Yours are the public acts of public men, But yours are not their household privacies. I grant you one of the great Powers on earth, But be not you the blatant traitors of the hearth. You hide the hand that writes: it must be so, For better so you fight for public ends; But some you strike can scarce return the blow; You should be all the nobler, O my friends. Be noble, you! nor work with faction’s tools To charm a lower sphere of fulminating fools. But knowing all your power to heat or cool, To soothe a civic wound or keep it raw, Be loyal, if you wish for wholesome rule: Our ancient boast is this—we reverence law. We still were loyal in our wildest fights, Or loyally disloyal battled for our rights. O Grief and Shame if while I preach of laws Whereby to guard our Freedom from offence— And trust an ancient manhood and the cause Of England and her health of commonsense— There hang within the heavens a dark disgrace, Some vast Assyrian doom to burst upon our race. I feel the thousand cankers of our State, I fain would shake their triple-folded ease, The hogs who can believe in nothing great, Sneering bedridden in the down of Peace Over their scrips and shares, their meats and wine, With stony smirks at all things human and divine! I honour much, I say, this man’s appeal. We drag so deep in our commercial mire, We move so far from greatness, that I feel Exception to be character’d in fire. Who looks for Godlike greatness here shall see The British Goddess, sleek Respectability. Alas for her and all her small delights! She feels not how the social frame is rack’d. She loves a little scandal which excites; A little feeling is a want of tact. For her there lie in wait millions of foes, And yet the ‘not too much’ is all the rule she knows. Poor soul! behold her: what decorous calm! She, with her week-day worldliness sufficed, Stands in her pew and hums her decent psalm With decent dippings at the name of Christ! And she has mov’d in that smooth way so long, She hardly can believe that she shall suffer wrong. Alas, our Church! alas, her growing ills, And those who tolerate not her tolerance, But needs must sell the burthen of their wills To that half-pagan harlot kept by France! Free subjects of the kindliest of all thrones, Headlong they plunge their doubts among old rags and bones. Alas, Church writers, altercating tribes— The vessel and your Church may sink in storms. Christ cried: Woe, woe, to Pharisees and Scribes! Like them, you bicker less for truth than forms. I sorrow when I read the things you write, What unheroic pertness! what un-Christian spite! Alas, our youth, so clever yet so small, Thin dilletanti deep in nature’s plan, Who make the emphatic One, by whom is all, An essence less concentred than a man! Better wild Mahmoud’s war-cry once again! O fools, we want a manlike God and Godlike men! Go, frightful omens. Yet once more I turn To you that mould men’s thoughts; I call on you To make opinion warlike, lest we learn A sharper lesson than we ever knew. I hear a thunder though the skies are fair, But shrill you, loud and long, the warning-note: Prepare!... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

NO DOUBT but ye are the People—your throne is above the King’s. Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things: Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear— Bringing the word well smoothen—such as a King should hear. Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden seas, Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease; Till ye said of Strife, “What is it?” of the Sword, “It is far from our ken”: Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your armed men. Ye stopped your ears to the warning—ye would neither look nor heed— Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts above their need. Because of your witless learning and your beasts of warren and chase, Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields for their camping-place. Ye forced them to glean in the highways the straw for the bricks they brought; Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught. Ye hindered and hampered and crippled; ye thrust out of sight and away Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for pay. Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed, At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field. Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land’s long-suffering star), When your strong men cheered in their millions while your striplings went to the war. Sons of the sheltered city—unmade, unhandled, unmeet— Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the street. And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath, Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death? So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize? How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice? But ye said, “Their valour shall show them”; but ye said, “The end is close.” And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes: And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride, Ere—ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride! Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals. Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie, Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by Waiting some easy wonder, hoping some saving sign Idle—openly idle—in the lee of the forespent Line. Idle—except for your boasting—and what is your boasting worth If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth? Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set, Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep. Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep. Men, not children, servants, or kinsfolk called from afar, But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war. Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same, Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game— As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste, But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste. As it were almost cricket—as it were even your play, Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day. So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake. So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap Forthright, accoutred, accepting—alert from the wells of sleep. So at the threat ye shall summon—so at the need ye shall send Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice. But ye say, “It will mar our comfort.” Ye say, “It will minish our trade.” Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid? For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.) Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds, With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods? Will the rabbit war with your foemen—the red deer horn them for hire? Your kept cock—pheasant keep you?—he is master of many a shire. Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt, Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns melt? Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore? Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more? Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both? Pride by Insolence chastened? Indolence purged by Sloth?) No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid? Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods shall aid. Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease; Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes; Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement gods— These shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods? From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent, And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent. When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips, When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your lips; When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke, Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke? No doubt but ye are the People—absolute, strong, and wise; Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes. On your own heads, in your own han... 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Hushed are the whimpering winds on the hill, Dumb is the shrinking plain, And the songs that enchanted the woods are still As I shoot to the skies again! Does the blood grow black on my fierce bent beak, Does the down still cling to my claw? Who brightened these eyes for the prey they seek? Life, I follow thy law! For I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk! Who knoweth my pitiless breast? Who watcheth me sway in the wild wind’s way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. As I glide and glide with my peering head, Or swerve at a puff of smoke, Who watcheth my wings on the wind outspread, Here– gone– with an instant stroke? Who toucheth the glory of life I feel As I buffet this great glad gale, Spire and spire to the cloud-world, wheel, Loosen my wings and sail? For I am the hawk, the island hawk, Who knoweth my pitiless breast? Who watcheth me sway in the sun’s bright way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. My mate in the nest on the high bright tree Blazing with dawn and dew, She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee As I drop like a bolt from the blue. She knoweth the fire of the level flight As I skim, close, close to the ground, With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright Dew-drops flashing around. She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk (Oh, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!) Watcheth him sway in the sun’s bright way. Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. She builded her nest on the high bright wold, She was taught in a world afar The lore that is only an April old Yet old as the evening star. Life of a far off ancient day In an hour unhooded her eyes. In the time of the budding of one green spray She was wise as the stars are wise. An eyas in eyry, a yellow-eyed hawk, On the old elm’s burgeoning breast, She watcheth me sway in the wild wind’s way. Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds Thro’ the ringing English dells, For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state, To the music of golden bells. A queen’s fair fingers have drawn the hood And tossed her aloft in the blue, A white hand eager for needless blood. I hunt for the needs of two. A haggard in yarak, a hawk, a hawk! Who knoweth my pitiless breast? Who watcheth me sway in the sun’s bright way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. Who fashioned her wide and splendid eyes That have stared in the eyes of kings? With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist: She has clawed at their jewelled rings! Who flung her first thro’ the crimson dawn To pluck him a prey from the skies, When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn In the valleys of Paradise? Who fashioned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast? Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind’s way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. Is there ever a song in all the world Shall say how the quest began With the beak and the wings that have made us kings And cruel– almost– as man? The wild wind whimpers across the heath Where the sad little tufts of blue And the red-stained grey little feathers of death Flutter! Who fashioned us? Who? Who fashioned the scimitar wings of the hawk, Bent beak and arrowy breast? Who watcheth him sway in the sun’s bright way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because ’tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. Now, when the flame they watch not towers About the soil they trod, Lads, we’ll remember friends of ours Who shared the work with God. To skies that knit their heartstrings right, To fields that bred them brave, The saviours come not home to-night: Themselves they could not save. It dawns in Asia, tombstones show And Shropshire names are read; And the Nile spills his overflow Beside the Severn’s dead. We pledge in peace by farm and town The Queen they served in war, And fire the beacons up and down The land they perished for. “God save the Queen” we living sing, From height to height ’tis heard; And with the rest your voices ring, Lads of the Fifty-third. Oh, God will save her, fear you not: Be you the men you’ve been, Get you the sons your fathers got, And God will save the Queen.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here