God and my Neighbour

Titel: God and my Neighbour

von Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Pepys, William Dean Howells, John Burroughs, William Harmon Norton, L. Mühlbach, Franklin Knight Lane, Walter Pater, Jonathan Swift, Augusta J. Evans, Trumbull White, Kathleen Thompson Norris, Matthew Arnold, Charles W. Colby, Shakespeare, James Fenimore Cooper, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ada Cambridge, Philip E. Muskett, Catherine Helen Spence, Rolf Boldrewood, Ernest Scott, Fergus Hume, H. G. Wells, Victor [pseud.] Appleton, Roald Amundsen, Max Simon Nordau, Henry David Thoreau, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Charles Henry Eden, Charles Babbage, T. R. Malthus, Unknown, Joseph Ernest Morris, Robert Southey, Isabella L. 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Ivens, Daniel Young, Sam Williams, George William Russell, Durant Drake, Rudyard Kipling, Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, William Westgarth, Jane Andrews, Charles Herbert Sylvester, Clarence Budington Kelland, W.B. Laughead, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Stephen Palfrey Webb, William John Wills, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Charles Dudley Warner, Fanny Burney, Edward Sylvester Ellis, John Bunyan, Jeremiah Chaplin, Ouida, Nora Archibald Smith, Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin, Herbert Spencer, Ellen Velvin, John Thomas Simpson, Eleanor H. Porter, James Richard Joy, Donald E. Keyhoe, Steven E. Jones, Mary E. Blain, Mary H. Kingsley, E. Edouard Tavernier, Algernon Blackwood, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, David Cory, Lilyan Stratton, A. E. J. Rawlinson, Marie L. Shedlock, [pseud.] Frances Little, Richard Savage, Lafcadio Hearn, T. S. Eliot, Henry Seton Merriman, William Morris, Elizabeth, Lady Barker, Robert S. Carroll, William Lyon Phelps, Sara Yorke Stevenson, Maciej hr. 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McMurry, Omar bey Al-Raschid, Frederick Philip Grove, Frank V. Webster, Robert Ames Bennet, A. B. Paterson, Mark Overton, Franklin P. Adams, Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Richardson, Jacob A. Riis, Frank Richard Stockton, Alfred Rochefort, William H. Maher, Maurice Leblanc, Mary Platt Parmele, Col. S. L. Brengle, Ralph Chaplin, Sir Douglas Mawson, Paul Severing, Homer Randall, George W. Peck, Diocese Of Connecticut, Flora Annie Steel, John Henry Goldfrap, Homer, Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton, W. F. Markwick, W. A. Smith, Brigadier Margaret Allen, William Ingraham Russell, Richard Jefferies, Barry Cornwall, Alfred Rochefort Calhoun, James Baldwin, Robert Blatchford

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GOD AND MY NEIGHBOUR

By Robert Blatchford

(Nunquam)

PREFACE

INFIDEL!

I put the word in capitals, because it is my new name, and I want to get used to it.

INFIDEL!

The name has been bestowed on me by several Christian gentlemen as a reproach, but to my ears it has a quaint and not unpleasing sound.

Infidel! "The notorious infidel editor of the Clarion is the form used by one True Believer. The words recurred to my mind suddenly, while I was taking my favourite black pipe for a walk along the pleasant Strand," and I felt a smile glimmer within as I repeated them.

Which is worse, to be a Demagogue or an Infidel? I am both. For while many professed Christians contrive to serve both God and Mammon, the depravity of my nature seems to forbid my serving either.

It was a mild day in mid-August, not cold for the time of year. I had been laid up for a few days, and my back was unpropitious, and I was tired. But I felt very happy, for so bad a man, since the sunshine was clear and genial, and my pipe went as easily as a dream.

Besides, one's fellow-creatures are so amusing: especially in the Strand. I had seen a proud and gorgeously upholstered lady lolling languidly in a motor car, and looking extremely pleased with herself—not without reason; and I had met two successful men of great presence, who reminded me somehow of Porkin and Snob; and I had noticed a droll little bundle of a baby, in a fawn-coloured woollen suit, with a belt slipped almost to her knees, and sweet round eyes as purple as pansies, who was hunting a rolling apple amongst the wild mob's million feet; and I had seen a worried-looking matron, frantically waving her umbrella to the driver of an omnibus, endanger the silk hat of Porkin and disturb the complacency of Snob; and I felt glad.

It was at that moment that there popped into my head the full style and title I had earned. "Notorious Infidel Editor of the Clarion!" These be brave words, indeed. For a moment they almost flattered me into the belief that I had become a member of the higher criminal classes: a bold bad man, like Guy Fawkes, or Kruger, or R. B. Cuninghame Graham.

You ought, I said to myself, to dress the part. You ought to have an S.D.P. sombrero, a slow wise Fabian smile, and the mysterious trousers of a Soho conspirator.

But at the instant I caught a sight of my counterfeit presentment in a shop window, and veiled my haughty crest. That a notorious Infidel! Behold a dumpy, comfortable British paterfamilias in a light flannel suit and a faded sun hat. No; it will not do. Not a bit like Mephisto: much more like the Miller of the Dee.

Indeed, I am not an irreligious man, really; I am rather a religious man; and this is not an irreligious, but rather a religious, book.

Such thoughts should make men humble. After all, may not even John Burns be human; may not Mr. Chamberlain himself have a heart that can feel for another?

Gentle reader, that was a wise as well as a charitable man who taught us there is honour among thieves; although, having never been a member of Parliament himself, he must have spoken from hearsay.

For all that, Robert, you're a notorious Infidel. I paused—just opposite the Tivoli—and gazed moodily up and down the Strand.

As I have remarked elsewhere, I like the Strand. It is a very human place. But I own that the Strand lacks dignity and beauty, and that amongst its varied odours the odour of sanctity is scarce perceptible.

There are no trees in the Strand. The thoroughfare should be wider. The architecture is, for the most part, banal. For a chief street in a Christian capital, the Strand is not eloquent of high national ideals.

There are derelict churches in the Strand, and dingy blatant taverns, and strident signs and hoardings; and there are