The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 23

The ignorant believer, coa.r.s.e and brutal as he is, is going to heaven.

He will be washed in the blood of the Lamb. He will have wings--a harp and a halo.

The intelligent and generous man who loves his fellow-men--who develops his brain, who enjoys the beautiful, is going to h.e.l.l--to the eternal prison.

Such is the justice of G.o.d--the mercy of Christ.

WHILE reading the accounts of the coronation of the Czar, of the pageants, processions and feasts, of the pomp and parade, of the barbaric splendor, of cloth of gold and glittering gems, I could not help thinking of the poor and melancholy peasants, of the toiling, half-fed millions, of the sad and ignorant mult.i.tudes who belong body and soul to this Czar.

I thought of the backs that have been scarred by the knout, of the thousands in prisons for having dared to say a whispered word for freedom, of the great mult.i.tude who had been driven like cattle along the weary roads that lead to the h.e.l.l of Siberia.

The cannon at Moscow were not loud enough, nor the clang of the bells, nor the blare of the trumpets, to drown the groans of the captives.

I thought of the fathers that had been torn from wives and children for the crime of speaking like men.

And when the priests spoke of the Czar as the "G.o.d-selected man," the "G.o.d-adorned man," my blood grew warm.

When I read of the coronation of the Czarina I thought of Siberia. I thought of girls working in the mines, hauling ore from the pits with chains about their waists; young girls, almost naked, at the mercy of brutal officials; young girls weeping and moaning their lives away because between their pure lips the word Liberty had burst into blossom.

Yet law neglects, forgets them, and crowns the Czarina. The injustice, the agony and horror in this poor world are enough to make mankind insane.

Ignorance and superst.i.tion crown impudence and tyranny. Millions of money squandered for the humiliation of man, to dishonor the people.

Back of the coronation, back of all the ceremonies, back of all the hypocrisy there is nothing but a lie.

It is not true that G.o.d "selected" this Czar to rule and rob a hundred millions of human beings.

It is all an ignorant, barbaric, superst.i.tious lie--a lie that pomp and pageant, and flaunting flags, and robed priests, and swinging censers, cannot change to truth.

Those who are not blinded by the glare and glitter at Moscow see millions of homes on which the shadows fall; see millions of weeping mothers, whose children have been stolen by the Czar; see thousands of villages without schools, millions of houses without books, millions and millions of men, women and children in whose future there is no star and whose only friend is death.

The coronation is an insult to the nineteenth century.

Long live the people of Russia!

MUSIC.--The savage enjoys noises--explosion--the imitation of thunder.

This noise expresses his feeling. He enjoys concussion. His ear and brain are in harmony. So, he takes cognizance of but few colors. The neutral tints make no impression on his eyes. He appreciates the flames of red and yellow. That is to say, there is a harmony between his brain and eye. As he advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other sounds, his eye other colors. He becomes a complex being, and there has entered into his mind the idea of proportion. The music of the drum no longer satisfies him. He sees that there is as much difference between noises and melodies as between stones and statues. The strings in Corti's Harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are developed.

The eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and sight increase from age to age.

The first idea of music is the keeping of time--a recurring emphasis at intervals of equal length or duration. This is afterward modified--the music of joy being fast, the emphasis at short intervals, and that of sorrow slow.

After all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the blood and muscles. There is a rise and fall under excitement of both. In joy the heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to such emotion is quick.

In grief--in sadness, the blood is delayed. In music the broad division is one of time. In language, words of joy are born of light--that which s.h.i.+nes--words of grief of darkness and gloom. There is still another division: The language of happiness comes also from heat, and that of sadness from cold.

These ideas or divisions are universal. In all art are the light and shadow--the heat and cold.

OF COURSE ENGLAND has no love for America. By England I mean the governing cla.s.s. Why should monarchy be in love with republicanism, with democracy? The monarch insists that he gets his right to rule from what he is pleased to call the will of G.o.d, whereas in a republic the sovereign authority is the will of the people. It is impossible that there should be any real friends.h.i.+p between the two forms of government.

We must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there is an England within England--an England that does not belong to the t.i.tled cla.s.ses--an England that has not been bribed or demoralized by those in authority; and that England has always been our friend, because that England is the friend of liberty and of progress everywhere. But the lackeys, the sn.o.bs, the flatterers of the t.i.tled, those who are willing to crawl that they may rise, are now and always have been the enemies of the great Republic.

It is a curious fact that in monarchical governments the highest and lowest are generally friends. There may be a foundation for this friends.h.i.+p in the fact that both are parasites--both live on the labor of honest men. After all, there is a kins.h.i.+p between the prince and the pauper. Both extend the hand for alms, and the fact that one is jeweled and the other extremely dirty makes no difference in principle--and the owners of these hands have always been fast friends, and, in accordance with the great law of ingrat.i.tude, both have held in contempt the people who supported them.

One thing we must not forget, and that is that the best people of England are our friends. The best writers, the best thinkers are on our side. It is only natural that all who visit America should find some fault. We find fault ourselves, and to be thin-skinned is almost a plea of guilty. For my part, I have no doubt about the future of America.

It not only is, but is to be for many, many generations, the greatest nation of the world.

I DO not care so much where, as with whom, I live. If the right folks are with me I can manage to get a good deal of happiness in the city or in the country. Cats love places and become attached to chimney-corners and all sorts of nooks--but I have but little of the cat in me, and am not particularly in love with places. After all, a palace without affection is a poor hovel, and the meanest hut with love in it is a palace for the soul.

If the time comes when poverty and want cease for the most part to exist, then the city will be far better than the country. People are always talking about the beauties of nature and the delights of solitude, but to me some people are more interesting than rocks and trees. As to city and country life I think that I substantially agree with Touchstone:

"In respect that it is solitary I like it very well; but in respect that it is private it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court it is tedious."

WHAT do I think of the lynchings in Georgia?

I suppose these outrages--these frightful crimes--make the same impression on my mind that they do on the minds of all civilized people. I know of no words strong enough, bitter enough, to express my indignation and horror. Men who belong to the "superior" race take a negro--a criminal, a supposed murderer, one alleged to have a.s.saulted a white woman--chain him to a tree, saturate his clothing with kerosene, pile f.a.gots about his feet. This is the preparation for the festival.

The people flock in from the neighborhood--come in special trains from the towns. They are going to enjoy themselves.

Laughing and cursing they gather about the victim. A man steps from the crowd--a man who hates crime and loves virtue. He draws his knife, and in a spirit of merry sport cuts off one of the victim's ears. This he keeps for a trophy--a souvenir. Another gentlemen fond of a jest cuts off the other ear. Another cuts off the nose of the chained and helpless wretch. The victim suffered in silence. He uttered no groan, no word--the one man of the two thousand who had courage.

Other white heroes cut and slashed his flesh. The crowd cheered. The people were intoxicated with joy. Then the f.a.gots were lighted and the bleeding and mutilated man was clothed in flame.

The people were wild with hideous delight. With greedy eyes they watched him burn; with hungry ears they listened for his shrieks--for the music of his moans and cries. He did not shriek. The festival was not quite perfect.

But they had their revenge. They trampled on the charred and burning corpse. They divided among themselves the broken bones. They wanted mementos--keepsakes that they could give to their loving wives and gentle babes.

These horrors were perpetrated in the name of justice. The savages who did these things belong to the superior race. They are citizens of the great Republic. And yet, it does not seem possible that such fiends are human beings. They are a disgrace to our country, our century and the human race.

Ex-Governor Atkinson protested against this savagery. He was threatened with death. The good people were helpless. While these lynchers murder the blacks they will destroy their own country. No civilized man wishes to live where the mob is supreme. He does not wish to be governed by murderers.

Let me say that what I have said is flattery compared with what I feel.

When I think of the other lynching--of the poor man mutilated and hanged without the slightest evidence, of the negro who said that these murders would be avenged, and who was brutally murdered for the utterance of a natural feeling--I am utterly at a loss for words.

Are the white people insane? Has mercy fled to beasts? Has the United States no power to protect a citizen? A nation that cannot or will not protect its citizens in time of peace has no right to ask its citizens to protect it in time of War.

OUR COUNTRY.--Our country is all we hope for--all we are. It is the grave of our father, of our mother, of each and every one of the sacred dead.

It is every glorious memory of our race. Every heroic deed. Every act of self-sacrifice done by our blood. It is all the accomplishments of the past--all the wise things said--all the kind things done--all the poems written and all the poems lived--all the defeats sustained--all the victories won--the girls we love--the wives we adore--the children we carry in our hearts--all the firesides of home--all the quiet springs, the babbling brooks, the rus.h.i.+ng rivers, the mountains, plains and woods--the dells and dales and vines and vales.