"But society professes to be growing more and more cultured every day," observed Alwyn.
"Oh, it PROFESSES! ... yes, that's just the mischief of it. Its professions are not worth a groat. It PROFESSES to be one thing while anybody with eyes can see that it actually is another! The old style of aristocrat and gentleman is dying out,--the new style is the horsey lord, the betting Duke, the coal-dealing Earl, the stock-broking Viscount! Trade is a very excellent thing,--a very necessary and important thing,--but its influence is distinctly NOT refining. I have the greatest respect for my cheesemonger, for instance (and he has an equal respect for me, since he has found that I know the difference between real butter and butterine), but all the same I don't want to see him in Parliament. I am arrogant enough to believe that I, even I, having studied somewhat, know more about the country's interest than he does. I view it by the light of ancient and modern historical evidence,--he views it according to the demand it makes on his cheese. We may both be narrow and limited in judgment,--nevertheless, I think, with all due modesty, that HIS judgment is likely to be more limited than mine. But it's no good talking about it,--this dear old land is given up to a sort of ignorant democracy, which only needs time to become anarchy, . . and we haven't got a strong man among us who dares speak out the truth of the inevitable disasters looming above us all. And society is not only vulgar, but demoralized,-- moreover, what is worse is, that, aided by its preachers and teachers, it is sinking into deeper depths of demoralization with every passing month and year of time."
Alwyn leaned hack in his chair thoughtfully, a sorrowful expression clouding his face.
"Surely things are not so bad as they seem, Villiers,"--he said gently--"Are you not taking a pessimistic view of affairs?"
"Not at all!" and Villiers, warming with his subject, walked up and down the room excitedly ... "Nor am I judging by the narrow observation of any particular 'set' or circle. I look at the expressive visible outcome of the whole,--the plainly manifest signs of the threatening future. Of course there are ever so many good people,--earnest people,--thinking people,--but they are a mere handful compared to the overpowering millions opposed to them, and whose motto is 'Evil, be thou my good.' Now you, for instance, are full of splendid ideas, and lucid plans of check and reform,--you are seized with a passionate desire to do something great for the world, and you are ready to speak the truth fearlessly on all occasions. But just think of the enormous task it would be to stir to even half an inch of aspiring nobleness, the frightful mass of corruption in London to-day! In all trades and professions it is the same story,--everything is a question of GAIN. To begin with, look at the Church, the 'Pillar of the State!' There, all sorts of worthless, incompetent men are hastily thrust into livings by wealthy patrons who care not a jot as to whether they are morally or intellectually fit for their sacred mission,--and a disgraceful universal muddle is the result. From this muddle, which resembles a sort of stagnant pool, emerge the strangest fungus-growths,--clergymen who take to acting a 'miracle-play,' ostensibly for the purposes of charity, but really to gratify their own tastes and leanings toward the mummer's art, --all the time utterly regardless of the effect their behavior is likely to have on the minds of the unthinking populace, who are led by the newspapers, and who read therein bantering inquiries as to whether the Church is coquetting with the Stage? whether the two are likely to become one? and whether Religion will in the future occupy no more serious consideration than the Drama? What is one to think, when one sees clerical notabilities seated in the stalls of a theatre complacently looking on at the representation of a 'society play' degrading in plot, repulsive in detail, and in nearly every case having to do with a married woman who indulges in a lover as a matter of course,--a play full of ambiguous side hits and equivocal jests, which, if the men of the Church were staunch to their vocation, they would be the first to condemn. Why, I saw the other day, in a fairly reliable journal, that some of these excellent 'divines' were going to start 'smoking sermons'--a sort of imitation of smoking concerts, I suppose, which are vile enough, in all conscience,--but to mix up religious matters with the selfish 'smoke mania' is viler still. I say that any clergyman who will allow men to smoke in his presence, while he is preaching sacred doctrine, is a coarse cad, and ought to be hounded out of the Church!"