Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1874-06-11
BARBARISN.

every simple and discreet soul when
he wants to kill his grandmother, I say
grandmother, but merely in a generic
sense The desire is for murder; and
grandmother stands for butcher, baker,
candlestick maker, the world at large,
or any one in particular. The desire
is for something to break the monotony
of this weary conventional life to for
get broad cloth, and remember only
the brute, in word, to smash things.
When human being puts off his
roundabout and puts on his coat, he
becomes slave. In his more rational
moments he may acknowledge that
what he loses in freedom he gains in
culture; that though he cannot climb a
tree Or lamp post, he can soar into
the infnities; that if he cannot throw
brick~bats at windows and tie tin pans
to dogs tails, he can at least, edit a
daily, nineteenth century newspaper
Still the time will come when his boy
ish savagery will re assert itself, when,
it may be-
s'If that hypothesis Of theirs be sounG,"-
a more ancient and primeyal savagery
will in him wake and cry.
This human tendency, or phase of
Renaissance, has various develop
ments. The commonest is mere anger;
a stupid, every day, household exper-
fence, about which little need be said,
and the less said the better Then
there is that mild mania, perplexing to
so many of its victims, the sudden
springing desire to jump over the pre-
cipice, pitch the baby out of the win
dow, laugh at the funeral, OF throw the
hymn-book at the head of parsons
And the parson himself; who shall say
that it is not sometimes this same i'm
pulse that prompts him at times to hurl
fire and birthstone at the heads of the
good people sitting so patiently beneath
him?
I do confess I have read nothing
lately with such keen relish as the
story of the late Sandwich Island mob.
who, when they heard. outside of the
Court House, that Kalakaua was elect
ed sovereign Of the nation over their
favorite, Queen Emma, set up true
Hawaiian yell, tell upon the honorable
representatives, both inside and out,
side of the hall, eat them up, so to
speak, into kindling wood, and for two
mortal hours ragged and ramped, slash
ed, crashed, screamed and roared
through the building like so many lions
and hyenas. At the end of two hours
the main room looked as if it had
been the scene of a railroad accident
They do that kind Of thing very well
in Paris, but there they mix a little
French ingenuity with the destruction,
and, besides, the thing there is ra5sonne.
There is some sense in it. The
petroleuse has certain vague appreheu
sion of Nemesis. But this Hawaiian
outbr rst apparently began and ended
in foolishness. 1t was not Cause, OF
even Movement. 1t was quelled, -
my friend, who was there that very day,
tells me,-by big U. S. marine. who
himself carried a large part of the mob
to the lookup, six at a time-three in
each hand. The King was quietly in
stalled very soon after, and the insur
rectionists seem to make as loyal sub
jects as Kalakaua could wish.
You need not tell me that it was
grand hatred for the new king that
made them 90 on like wild beasts. No.
They had better p1ovoeation than
that. For generation after generation
they had been, to use Mrs. Mufin's ex
preston, ''sat upon" by civilized clothes,
civilized customs, civilized govern
ments, civilized laws, civilized proper
ties. and civilization generally. The
time had come when those in whom
the old blood was hottest could stand
it no longer. They arose, and in the
names of their ancestors, smashed
things. They had two happy hours.
So, while we may haze certain
sympathetic understanding of the bar
barrie element in art, literature, and re-
ligion, that is very far from being able
to endure it there. 1t is a thing which
every man knows how to repress in his
own bosom, and he sees no reason why
the poet, for instance, should not do
the same when it comes to matter of
artistic expression. If the ordinary
civilized man easily conquers any poss
ible desire to run bowling and naked
through the streets of the small village
where he may happen to reside, why
should poet be permitted to sound his
barbarie yawp over the roofs of the
world?
If in art, savagery is out of place,
how much more in religion. 1t is not
merely in rant that tie tendency shows
itself, but IN that late and unlovely
form of city evangelism, which has all
the yulgarity oftLe backwoods ministry