VOLTAIRE ON THE FLEET.
IF in the Elysian Fields they are moved at all by mortal things, we may be sure that Voltaire watches with eagle eyes Le Itoi des Bulgares trying to Prussianize the world. We may be sure, also, that Voltaire, if he writes as well as watches, is full of sympathetic reflections on the English, for he loved our nation ; and if he did not build us a synagogue, he at any rate raised to us an eternal monument in his letters on England—A nglis ererit Voltaire. He could not keep his pen off the people who always amused him so immensely, and yet touched his fierce, hard, mocking spirit as children touch men who are too cynical and saturnine to show human feeling to grown-up people. They will see men or women lying wounded in the ditch and pass by on the other side, but cannot resist the appeal of the child. We will go a step further and say that if Voltaire has been watching and writing of England, he has this week been delighted beyond all measure by the way in_which we took the greatest naval battle in history, and made it a subject, not for flags, toasts, and triumphs, but for indulgence in a perfect orgy of spleen, self-depreciation, abuse of ourselves and our rulers, and for a general display of melancholic gloom of the most approved East Wind kind. (Our readers will remember Voltaire's deliciously whimsical attribution of English mental eccentricities to the inability of the race to endure cold, dry winds.) The weather and the occasion, we may be sure Voltaire has been saying, all contributed to afford the English people an opportunity of showing off their national characteristics to the full. He has unquestion- ably been gravely thanking Le Bei des Bulgares for having proved so perfect a circus-master. "Before the eyes of a delighted Europe he has been putting the lion through his paces—including, of course, the final bolt for the cage-door, with the lion's teeth in the black and yellow coat-tails as they whisked through the aperture into safety."
Let. us imagine ourselves blessed by what Sir Thomas Browne would have called the "courteous revelation of spirits." A new Voltaire letter on England is on our desk. Surely it must run something in this style
• Daan —,—The English are a great people, a bravo people, and a people who, in spite of their phlegm, and of all appearances to the contrary, are at heart optimists. No doubt they conceal the fact with a cloak which a fool or an enemy would call hypocrisy, but in truth it is nothing of the kind. If you could have seen them during the last two days and watched how they received the news of the great battle lately fought in the North Sea, you would have been exasperated at first, but later I am sure you would have learnt, like me, not Only to love but to understand them. Any other people would have per- ceived at once that their Fleet had won a victory. It had stopped the enemy doing what he wanted to do, whatever that was—and who can say what Potadam may not want when once its lusts are stirred ? It had driven him off 'the sea into his ports, and further it was left to scour the battlefield in proud possession. "What more can heart desire ?" would have been the cry in Paris or Madrid. Not so with the English. They only perceived a magnificent opportunity to show the world what the spleen can do at its height. Though they had the facts which I have just given staring them in the face, there was not a bright eye or a happy countenance in the country. Every man, woman, and child was -plunged in melancholy, and melancholy of a very angry kind. They were determined to enjoy to the full what one of their poets has called "the luxury of woe," and, but for their essential goodneas of heart,
I should have added, of arrogant ill-temper. They were "of all men most miserable." [You must always pardon these islanders a quotation
from Peter or Paul. They know their Bibles Lir too well, and quote on every possible and impossible occasion.1 They wore disgraced, they were ruined, they had lost the command of the sea—how, they did not explain, and at tin moment it seal positively not safe to ask them. To have done so would have been to win a drubbing from people who the next moment were declaring that all spirit, courage, steadfastness, and what-not had utterly and for ever abandoned the English race.—For the future any man might slap their faces or kick their hinder parts without the slightest trepidation. It was all over. They could never recover from the humiliation and despair of this black Friday.
You will say, perhaps, that all this melancholy was really the result
of the humanity of the English, and of their sorrow at the great loss of life, and even more at the loss of those precious ships which the English- man loves as other men love animals or old customs. Only the English manage to worship Lased:nate things, though of course they will not allow their "coursers of the brine" to be inanimate. No; that is not the explanation. The English know how to suffer losses without blenching. As their greatest General said, they rather like a "big butcher's bill." It stira their sluggish spirits to hear of great losses, huge slaughters, and heroic sacrifices. They endure death and wounds easily enough. It was the luxury of self-depreciation, the joy of hitting their own heads hard, which they could not resist when so good an opportunity offered itself. The temptation was increased by the fact that th3 Lords of th Admiralty, who are also Englislunen and share the national feeling, led off the chorus of adoration of the great goddess of Spleen in a style of special magnificence. We have all heard the expression "lie like a bulletin." The English will some day vary it to "weep like a hullo- tin." So lachrymose was the manner in which Milordr announced the news of the sea fight that it took even a Frenchman a little time to realize what the document was so zealously concealing. Not merely was its general tone funereal, but there was visible an almost savage effort to exaggerate the English leases and conceal those of the enemy. The English took the cue instantly and joyfully, and wept, and would not be comforted. Yet I honestly believe that all the time those amazing islanders were cherishing in their secret hearts the knowledge that things were really quite satisfactory, and that after a good howl they would enjoy all the more the delights of victory. I have hoard that one of their youthful poets now on this aide Lathe and the Styx was in tho habit of putting the strongest cayenne pepper down his throat and enduring temporary tortures, in order that later he might the more enjoy the coolness of his claret, as they all call Bordeaux in London — and, by the way, there is none better than that stored in the cellars of England- They tend it as if it were a rare plant.
Well, this, I am sure, is what the English people were doing last week. As I write they are beginning to acknowledge how delicious claret tastes to a burnt throat. Finally, they will return to sobriety and sound business, and will reckon up their gains in the true counting- house style. "What a people!" you will say. "They are impossible ! Frenzied and incomprehensible barbarians !" Perhaps. And yet somehow delightful barbarians with a true worship for intellect, science, and even, incredible as it may sound, art. Their loyalty, if not their dis- crimination, is amazing. In truth, if I may whisper it in your ear, of discrimination and discretion they have none. Of literary and artistie valour, however, them is plenty. If they think you are a genius, they will go through fire and water to save and serve you, and never even ask to see your certificates. It is sufficient if you yourself swear that you are the authentic son of Apollo.. They do not know why they cherish genius. It is enough if the mystic label is there. I admit that
they cannot understand genius as we understand it, but at any rate they adore it. Do you wonder, then, that I pardon all their gloomy, and even graceless, follies and eccentricities, their crudities and aber-
rations I claim for them the right to indulge their spleen to any extent they may desire. As long as they recognize the flowers of the mind and will die to protect them, what man of letters or of genius can be so base as to deny his bravest bodyguard ? Truly the English have never delighted and amused me more than within the past lea days. They are a noble people, and I hug myself and them for theit delicious inconsequence. It is Rabelais and Don Quixote come to life in the plump body of M. Jourdain, and yet with it all the stern trumpet of Mara fires the heart. If you want to go into battle, have an Englishman at your right hand—yes, and another at your left, and, I may add, two immediately in front and two close behind. "There is something in the English after all." Never forget that, even when you are most irritated by the antics of these engaging madmen.
With profound respect and in tho best of tempers, Your devoted friend VOLTAM!.
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