The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

ne of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame tradition.

y and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinth and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike. The more his mother preached a more t

e. His hatred of modern lawlessness had been crowned also by an accident. It happened that he was walking in a side street at the instant of a dynamite outrage. He had been blind and deaf for a moment, and then seen, the smoke clearing, the broken windows and the bleeding faces. After that he

nearer his enemy, and, what was worse, no nearer a living. As he paced the Thames embankment, bitterly biting a cheap cigar and brooding on the advance of Anarchy, there was no anarchist with a

r. The sky, indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on the river relatively so lurid, that the water almost seemed of fiercer fla

r Lytton. Also his yellow beard and hair were more unkempt and leonine than when they appeared long afterwards, cut and pointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long, lean, black cigar, bought in Soho for twopence, stood out fr

, seemed stung by the mere stolidity of the automa

er! I tell you that if that were literally human blood, spilt and shining, you would still be standing here as solid as ever, looking out for some po

he policeman, "it is the ca

id Syme,

he battle," pursued the policeman. "The com

ls!" said Syme. "Is this u

advantages. The Board Schools came after my time. What edu

have it?" asked

row," said

e, are the truest things in so many men, bro

" he said, "you ought

sighed and s

solemnly, "I kno

the police?" asked Sym

in the service for those whose fears for humanity were concerned rather with the aberrations of the scientific intel

But as for making yourself clear, it is the last thing you do. How comes a man

t surprised at it. We are keeping it rather dark from the educated class, because that class contains most

in what?"

ertain that the scientific and artistic worlds are silently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. He has, therefore, formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are also philosophers. It is their business to watch the beginnings of this conspiracy, not merely

bright with a sym

ou do, the

essimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on

s really as much connection between crim

member the great poisoning princes of the Renaissance. We say that the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them. They accept the essential ideal of man; they merely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. But philo

k his hand

verse and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not an anarchist. He wishes to cleanse the edifice, but not to destroy it. But the evil philosopher is not trying to alter things, but to annihilate them. Yes, the modern world has retained all those parts of police work which are really oppressive and ignomi

don't know what you're doing, but you're wasting your life. You must, you shall, join our special army against anarchy. Their armies are on our frontiers.

at the modern world is full of lawless little men and mad little movements. But, beastly as they are, they generally have the o

l the outer ring the innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guilty section. The outer ring-the main mass of their supporters-are merely anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the system that has called it crime. T

said

applauding crowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But in their mouths"-and the policeman lowered his voice-"in their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to think that

row bombs instead of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because the b

?" asked Syme, with

to be somewhat in the confidence of the chief of whom I have spoken. You should really come and see

nquired Syme,

y for always sitting in a pitch-dark room. He say

w what he was doing, he had been passed through the hands of about four intermediate officials, and was suddenly shown into a room, the abrupt blackness o

w recruit?" ask

e in the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it came from a m

sible chief, who seemed to have heard al

et, made a feeble fight agai

e no experien

e," said the other, "of t

m really

that is enough,"

't know any profession of which m

martyrs. I am condemning

ummer suit of light blue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in the button-hole, and, in short, became that elegant and rather insupportable person whom Gregory had first encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before he finally left the police premises his friend provided him with a small blue card, on which was written, "The Last Crusade," and a number, the sign of his official authority. He put t

insane yet solid decision of that evening, though partly also to an entire change in the weather and the sky since he entered the little tavern some two hours before. Every trace of the passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had

ried with him-the food and the brandy and the loaded pistol-took on exactly that concrete and material poetry which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journey or a bun with him to bed. The sword-stick and the brandy-flask, though in themselves only the tools of morbid conspirators, became the expressions of his own more healthy romance. The sword-stick became almost the sword of chivalry, and the brandy the wine of the stirrup-cup. For even the most dehum

ttersea, and when they came under the enormous bulk of Westminster day had already begun to break. It broke like the splitting of great bars of lead, showing bars

he colossal steps of some Egyptian palace; and, indeed, the thing suited his mood, for he was, in his own mind, mounting to attack the solid thrones of horrible and heathen kings. He leapt ou