Humanity: an Interlude - Page 2

into a tram which seemed to be going out of the city.
In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little man with a
black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy whiskers,
like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And about the time
that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic grew thinner,
and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were saying.
Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy to follow,
because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long words
because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin.

The man with the black beard said: "It must that we have the Progress."

The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying:
"It must also that we have the Consolidation International."

This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened
with some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it.
One of the Belgians was a Little Belgian, as we speak
of a Little Englander. The other was a Belgian Imperialist,
for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be altogether
a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire.
Being a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being
an empire only means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers
was the Imperialist, and he was saying: "The science, behold there
the new guide of humanity."

And the man with the beard answered him: "It does not suffice to
have progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment
of the human justice."

This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much
too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard in
England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast.
Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French.
Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on
the march. All the world goes to make itself instructed.
It must that the more instructed enlighten the less instructed.
Eh, well then, the European must impose upon the savage the science
and the light. Also (apparently) he must impose himself on
the savage while he is about it. To-day one travelled quickly.
The science had changed all. For our fathers, they were
religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had
electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing;
all the lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves.
Soon there would not be but the great Empires and confederations,
guided by the science, always the science.

Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with
the sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash.
Without doubt Humanity