Sybil, Or, The Two Nations

by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli

  "You lean against an ancient trunk," said Egremont, carelessly advancingto the stranger, who looked up at him without any expression ofsurprise, and then replied. "They say 'tis the trunk beneath whosebranches the monks encamped when they came to this valley to raise theirbuilding. It was their house, till with the wood and stone around them,their labour and their fine art, they piled up their abbey. And thenthey were driven out of it, and it came to this. Poor men! poor men!"

  "They would hardly have forfeited their resting-place had they deservedto retain it," said Egremont.

  "They were rich. I thought it was poverty that was a crime," replied thestranger in a tone of simplicity.

  "But they had committed other crimes."

  "It may be so; we are very frail. But their history has been written bytheir enemies; they were condemned without a hearing; the people roseoftentimes in their behalf; and their property was divided with those onwhose reports it was forfeited."

  "At any rate, it was a forfeiture which gave life to the community,"said Egremont; "the lands are held by active men and not by drones."

  "A drone is one who does not labour," said the stranger; "whether hewear a cowl or a coronet, 'tis the same to me. Somebody I suppose mustown the land; though I have heard say that this individual tenure is nota necessity; but however this may be, I am not one who would object tothe lord, provided he were a gentle one. All agree the Monastics wereeasy landlords; their rents were low; they granted leases in those days.Their tenants too might renew their term before their tenure ran out: sothey were men of spirit and property. There were yeomen then, sir: thecountry was not divided into two classes, masters and slaves; there wassome resting-place between luxury and misery. Comfort was an Englishhabit then, not merely an English word."

  "And do you really think they were easier landlords than our presentones?" said Egremont, inquiringly.

  "Human nature would tell us that, even if history did not confess it.The Monastics could possess no private property; they could save nomoney; they could bequeath nothing. They lived, received, and expendedin common. The monastery too was a proprietor that never died and neverwasted. The farmer had a deathless landlord then; not a harsh guardian,or a grinding mortgagee, or a dilatory master in chancery, all wascertain; the manor had not to dread a change of lords, or the oaks totremble at the axe of the squandering heir. How proud we are still inEngland of an old family, though, God knows, 'tis rare to see one now.Yet the people like to say, We held under him, and his father and hisgrandfather before him: they know that such a tenure is a benefit. Theabbot was ever the same. The monks were in short in every district apoint of refuge for all who needed succour, counsel, and protection abody of individuals having no cares of their own, with wisdom to guidethe inexperienced, with wealth to relieve the suffering, and often withpower to protect the oppressed."

  "You plead their cause with feeling," said Egremont, not unmoved.

  "It is my own; they were the sons of the People, like myself."

  "I had thought rather these monasteries were the resort of the youngerbranches of the aristocracy?" said Egremont.

  "Instead of the pension list;" replied his companion, smiling, but notwith bitterness. "Well, if we must have an aristocracy, I would soonerthat its younger branches should be monks and nuns, than colonelswithout regiments, or housekeepers of royal palaces that exist onlyin name. Besides see what advantage to a minister if the unendowedaristocracy were thus provided for now. He need not, like a ministerin these days, entrust the conduct of public affairs to individualsnotoriously incompetent, appoint to the command of expeditions generalswho never saw a field, make governors of colonies out of men who nevercould govern themselves, or find an ambassador in a broken dandy ora blasted favourite. It is true that many of the monks and nuns werepersons of noble birth. Why should they not have been? The aristocracyhad their share; no more. They, like all other classes, were benefittedby the monasteries: but the list of the mitred abbots when they weresuppressed, shows that the great majority of the heads of houses were ofthe people."

  "Well, whatever difference of opinion may exist on these points," saidEgremont, "there is one on which there can be no controversy: the monkswere great architects."

  "Ah! there it is," said the stranger, in a tone of plaintiveness; "ifthe world but only knew what they had lost! I am sure that not thefaintest idea is generally prevalent of the appearance of England beforeand since the dissolution. Why, sir, in England and Wales alone, therewere of these institutions of different sizes; I mean monasteries, andchantries and chapels, and great hospitals; considerably upwards ofthree thousand; all of them fair buildings, many of them of exquisitebeauty. There were on an average in every shire at least twentystructures such as this was; in this great county double that number:establishments that were as vast and as magnificent and as beautiful asyour Belvoirs and your Chatsworths, your Wentworths and your Stowes. Tryto imagine the effect of thirty or forty Chatsworths in this countythe proprietors of which were never absent. You complain enough nowof absentees. The monks were never non-resident. They expended theirrevenue among those whose labour had produced it. These holy men toobuilt and planted as they did everything else for posterity: theirchurches were cathedrals; their schools colleges; their halls andlibraries the muniment rooms of kingdoms; their woods and waters, theirfarms and gardens, were laid out and disposed on a scale and in a spiritthat are now extinct: they made the country beautiful, and the peopleproud of their country."

  "Yet if the monks were such public benefactors, why did not the peoplerise in their favour?"

  "They did, but too late. They struggled for a century, but theystruggled against property and they were beat. As long as the monksexisted, the people, when aggrieved, had property on their side. Andnow 'tis all over," said the stranger; "and travellers come and stare atthese ruins, and think themselves very wise to moralize over time. Theyare the children of violence, not of time. It is war that created theseruins, civil war, of all our civil wars the most inhuman, for it waswaged with the unresisting. The monasteries were taken by storm, theywere sacked, gutted, battered with warlike instruments, blown up withgunpowder; you may see the marks of the blast against the new towerhere. Never was such a plunder. The whole face of the country for acentury was that of a land recently invaded by a ruthless enemy; it wasworse than the Norman conquest; nor has England ever lost this characterof ravage. I don't know whether the union workhouses will remove it.They are building something for the people at last. After an experimentof three centuries, your gaols being full, and your treadmills losingsomething of their virtue, you have given us a substitute for themonasteries."

  "You lament the old faith," said Egremont, in a tone of respect.

  "I am not viewing the question as one of faith," said the stranger."It is not as a matter of religion, but as a matter of right, that I amconsidering it: as a matter, I should say, of private right and publichappiness. You might have changed if you thought fit the religion of theabbots as you changed the religion of the bishops: but you had no rightto deprive men of their property, and property moreover which undertheir administration so mainly contributed to the welfare of thecommunity."

  "As for community," said a voice which proceeded neither from Egremontnor the stranger, "with the monasteries expired the only type that weever had in England of such an intercourse. There is no community inEngland; there is aggregation, but aggregation under circumstances whichmake it rather a dissociating, than an uniting, principle."

  It was a still voice that uttered these words, yet one of a peculiarcharacter; one of those voices that instantly arrest attention: gentleand yet solemn, earnest yet unimpassioned. With a step as whisperingas his tone, the man who had been kneeling by the tomb, had unobservedjoined his associate and Egremont. He hardly reached the middle height;his form slender, but well proportioned; his pale countenance, slightlymarked with the small pox, was redeemed from absolute ugliness bya highly-intellectual brow, and large dark eyes that indicated deeps
ensibility and great quickness of apprehension. Though young, he wasalready a little bald; he was dressed entirely in black; the fairnessof his linen, the neatness of his beard, his gloves much worn, yetcarefully mended, intimated that his very faded garments were the resultof necessity rather than of negligence.

  "You also lament the dissolution of these bodies," said Egremont.

  "There is so much to lament in the world in which we live," said theyounger of the strangers, "that I can spare no pang for the past."

  "Yet you approve of the principle of their society; you prefer it, yousay, to our existing life."

  "Yes; I prefer association to gregariousness."

  "That is a distinction," said Egremont, musingly.

  "It is a community of purpose that constitutes society," continued theyounger stranger; "without that, men may be drawn into contiguity, butthey still continue virtually isolated."

  "And is that their condition in cities?"

  "It is their condition everywhere; but in cities that condition isaggravated. A density of population implies a severer struggle forexistence, and a consequent repulsion of elements brought into too closecontact. In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain.They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as tothe making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless ofneighbours. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself;modern society acknowledges no neighbour."

  "Well, we live in strange times," said Egremont, struck by theobservation of his companion, and relieving a perplexed spirit by anordinary exclamation, which often denotes that the mind is more stirringthan it cares to acknowledge, or at the moment is capable to express.

  "When the infant begins to walk, it also thinks that it lives in strangetimes," said his companion.

  "Your inference?" asked Egremont.

  "That society, still in its infancy, is beginning to feel its way."

  "This is a new reign," said Egremont, "perhaps it is a new era."

  "I think so," said the younger stranger.

  "I hope so," said the elder one.

  "Well, society may be in its infancy," said Egremont slightly smiling;"but, say what you like, our Queen reigns over the greatest nation thatever existed."

  "Which nation?" asked the younger stranger, "for she reigns over two."

  The stranger paused; Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly.

  "Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval. "Twonations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who areas ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if theywere dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets;who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, areordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws."

  "You speak of--" said Egremont, hesitatingly.

  "THE RICH AND THE POOR."

  At this moment a sudden flush of rosy light, suffusing the grey ruins,indicated that the sun had just fallen; and through a vacant arch thatoverlooked them, alone in the resplendent sky, glittered the twilightstar. The hour, the scene, the solemn stillness and the softeningbeauty, repressed controversy, induced even silence. The last wordsof the stranger lingered in the ear of Egremont; his musing spirit wasteeming with many thoughts, many emotions; when from the Lady Chapelthere rose the evening hymn to the Virgin. A single voice; but tonesof almost supernatural sweetness; tender and solemn, yet flexible andthrilling.

  Egremont started from his reverie. He would have spoken, buthe perceived that the elder of the strangers had risen from hisresting-place, and with downcast eyes and crossed arms, was on hisknees. The other remained standing in his former posture.

  The divine melody ceased; the elder stranger rose; the words were on thelips of Egremont, that would have asked some explanation of this sweetand holy mystery, when in the vacant and star-lit arch on which hisglance was fixed, he beheld a female form. She was apparently in thehabit of a Religious, yet scarcely could be a nun, for her veil, ifindeed it were a veil, had fallen on her shoulders, and revealed herthick tresses of long fair hair. The blush of deep emotion lingered ona countenance, which though extremely young, was impressed with acharacter of almost divine majesty; while her dark eyes and long darklashes, contrasting with the brightness of her complexion and theluxuriance of her radiant locks, combined to produce a beauty as rare asit is choice; and so strange, that Egremont might for a moment have beenpardoned for believing her a seraph, that had lighted on this sphere,or the fair phantom of some saint haunting the sacred ruins of herdesecrated fane.

  Book 2 Chapter 6