The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-07-20
A. Progressive Century.
The Self-Satisfied Air of Nineteenth Cen
fury Civilization.
IFortnightly Review

In one Of those delightful tales of Voltaire,
remember how the King of Babylon cured OF
excessive self. esteem great satrap called Irax.
The moment he awoke in the morning the
master of the royal music entered the favorite's
chamber with foil chorus and orchestra, and
performed in his honor a cantata which lasted
two hours, and every third minute there came
a refrain to this effect:
What virtue, what grace, what power hath he;
How proud of himself my lord must be.
The cantata over, royal chamberlain adj
yanced and pronounced harangue that lasted
three.quarters of an hour, in which he extolled
him for possessing all the good qualities which
he had not got. At dinner, which lasted three
hours, the same ceremonial was continued. If
he opened his mouth to speak, the first cham
berlain said: "Harki we shall hear wisdom"
And before he had uttered four words the Sec
ond chamberlain said, "What wisdom do we
hearv' Then the third and fourth chamber
lains broke into shouts of laughter over the
good things which Irax had said, or rather
ought to have said After dinner the same
cantata was again sung in his honor. On the
firgt day Irax was delighted; the second he
found less pleasant on the third he was boz ed ;
on the fourth he said he could bear it no long
er, and on the fifth he was cured. sometimes
think this nineteenth century, with its materl-
al progress and mechanical Inventions, Its
steam and electricity, gas and patents, is being
treated by the press and other public admirers,
much as the chamberlains in Zadig treated the
satrap. The century is hardly awake OF
morning before thousands of newspapers,
speeches, lectures and essays appear at its bed
side or breakfast table, repeating as in chorus:
What virtue, what grace; what power hath he;
How pleased with himself my lord must be!
Surely no century in all human history was
ever SO much praised to its face for its wonder
full achievements, its wealth and its power, its
UNPARALLELED ingenuity and its miraculous ca
pacity for making itself comfortable and gen.
orally enjoying life. British associations and
all sorts OF associations, economic sclehtinc
and mechanical, are perpetually executing
cantatas which (alasD last much longer than
three hours. The gentlemen who perform
wonderful and unsavory feats in crowded lee
ture halls always remind us that Never was
such time as this Nineteenth century," Pub
lie men laying the first stones of Institutes,
museums, or amusing the royal academy after
dinner, great inventors who have reaped ior-
tunes and titles, raise up their hands and bless
us in the benignity of aff1uent old age. L often
think OF Lord Sherbrooke, in his new robes
and coronet, as the First Chamberlain, bowling
and crying out, "What a noble age is thisP'
The journals perform the part of the orchestra,
banging big drums and blowing trumpets--
penny trumpets, two-penny, three-penny or
six-penny trumpets-and the speakers before
or after dinner, and the gentlemen who read
papers in the sections perform thepart of cho-
rus, singing in unison:
How pleased with itself this age must be!
As mere mite to this magnificent epoch,
ask myself what have I done, and many plain
people around me who have no mechanical ge-
MUS at all-what have we done to deserve this
perpetual cataract of congratulation? All l
oon think 0f ia the that 81 Figaro"
gives the Count" Our lordships gave ourselves
the trouble to be born in itlp