at once be so fierce that he can kill in what he considers a good cause, and yet so meek that he must argue in what he considers a bad cause.  Obedience or disobedience, conventional or unconventional, a solicitor’s letter cannot be more sacred than the King’s writ; a blue bag cannot be more rational than the British flag.  The thing is rubbish read anyway, and the only difficulty is to get a joke good enough to express it.  It is a case for the Court Jester.  The phantasy of it could only be expressed by some huge ceremonial hoax.  Carson ought to be crowned with the shamrocks and emeralds and followed by green-clad minstrels of the Clan-na-Gael, playing “The Wearing of the Green.”

Belated Chattiness by Wireless

But all the recent events are like that.  They are practical jokes.  The jokes do not need to be made:  they only need to be pointed out.  You and I do not talk and act as the Isaacs brothers talked and acted, by their own most favourable account of themselves; and even their account of themselves was by no means favourable.  You and I do not talk of meeting our own born brother “at a family function” as if he were some infinitely distant cousin whom we only met at Christmas.  You and I, when we suddenly feel inclined for a chat with the same brother about his dinner and the Coal Strike, do not generally select either wireless telegraphy or the Atlantic Cable as the most obvious and economical channel for that outburst of belated chattiness.  You and I do not talk, if it is proposed to start a railway between Catsville and Dogtown, as if the putting up of a station at Dogtown could have no kind of economic effect on the putting up of a station at Catsville.  You and I do not think it candid to say that when we are at one end of a telephone we have no sort of connection with the other end.  These things have got into the region of farce; and should be dealt with farcically, not even ferociously.

A Fool Who Shall Be Free

In the Roman Republic there was a Tribune of the People, whose person was inviolable like an ambassador’s.  There was much the same idea in Becket’s attempt to remove the Priest, who was then the popular champion, from the ordinary courts.  We shall have no Tribune; for we have no republic.  We shall have no Priest; for we have no religion.  The best we deserve or can expect is a Fool who shall be free; and who shall deliver us with laughter.

THE ART OF MISSING THE POINT