Down fell they dead
together, exactly as Macaulay's Lay says, and still stood all who saw
them fall almost until the hour at which I write.
This coincident collapse of both religious and political idealism
produced a curious cold air of emptiness and real subconscious
agnosticism such as is extremely unusual in the history of mankind. It
is what Mr. Wells, with his usual verbal delicacy and accuracy, spoke of
as that ironical silence that follows a great controversy. It is what
people less intelligent than Mr. Wells meant by calling themselves _fin
de siecle_; though, of course, rationally speaking, there is no more
reason for being sad towards the end of a hundred years than towards the
end of five hundred fortnights. There was no arithmetical autumn, but
there was a spiritual one. And it came from the fact suggested in the
paragraphs above; the sense that man's two great inspirations had
failed him together. The Christian religion was much more dead in the
eighteenth century than it was in the nineteenth century. But the
republican enthusiasm was also much more alive. If their scepticism was
cold, and their faith even colder, their practical politics were wildly
idealistic; and if they doubted the kingdom of heaven, they were
gloriously credulous about the chances of it coming on earth.
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