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Galleporto Bavicarius Directory 13
Page 06
In my opinion these characteristics, also, are due to the conditions of society, past and present, rather than to the inherent nature of the people. The old civilization was easy-going; it had no clocks; it hardly knew the time of day; it never hastened. The hour was estimated and was twice as long as the modern hour. The structure of society demanded the constant observance of the forms of etiquette; this, with its numberless genuflections and strikings of the head on the floor, always demanded time. Furthermore, the very character of the footgear compelled and still compels a shuffling, ambling gait when walking the streets. The clog is a well-named hindrance to civilization in the waste of time it compels. The slow-going, time-ignoring characteristics of New Japan are social inheritances from feudal times, characteristics which are still hampering its development. The industrious spirit that is to be found in so many quarters to-day is largely the gift of the new civilization. Shoes are taking the place of clogs. The army and all the police, on ordinary duty, wear shoes. Even the industry of the students is largely due to the new conditions of student life. The way in which the Japanese are working to-day, and the feverish haste that some of them evince in their work, shows that they are as capable as Occidentals of acquiring the rush of civilization.
The dispute between Marias and Sulla for the command against Mithridates was the occasion of the first Civil War. The ability which Sulla had displayed in the Social War, and his well-known attachment to the Senatorial party, naturally marked him out as the man to whom this important dignity was to be granted. He was accordingly elected Consul for the year 88 B.C., with Q. Pompeius Rufus as his colleague; and he forthwith received the command of the Mithridatic War. But Marius had long coveted this distinction; he quitted the magnificent villa which he had built at Misenum, and took up his residence at Rome; and in order to show that neither his age nor his corpulency had destroyed his vigor, he repaired daily to the Campus Martius, and went through the usual exercises with the young men. He was determined not to yield without a struggle to his hated rival. As he had formerly employed the Tribune Saturninus to carry out his designs, so now he found an able instrument for his purpose in the Tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus. Sulpicius was one of the greatest orators of the age, and had acquired great influence by his splendid talents. He was an intimate friend of the Tribune M. Livius Drusus, and had been himself elected Tribune for B.C. 88, through the influence of the Senatorial party, who placed great hopes in him; but, being overwhelmed with debt, he now sold himself to Marius, who promised him a liberal share of the spoils of the Mithridatic War. Accordingly, Sulpicius brought forward a law by which the Italians were to be distributed among the thirty-five tribes.
And not only indignation and distress must come to this task. The stern, uncompromising militarist will not be moved from his determinations by our horror and hostility. These things will but "brace" him. He has a more vulnerable side. The ultimate lethal weapon for every form of stupidity is ridicule, and against the high silliness of the militarist it is particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally end war. The stern, strong, silent man will cease to trouble us only when we have stripped him of his last rag of pretension and touched through to the quick of his vanity with the realization of his apprehended foolishness. Literature will have failed humanity if it is so blinded by the monstrous agony in Flanders as to miss the essential triviality at the head of the present war. Not the slaughter of ten million men can make the quality of the German Kaiser other than theatrical and silly.
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