Margaret Bertha Synge

“ But the inhuman and pitiless brutality of the age was now illumined for ever by the radiance of that light shed over England by her newly found Christianity, under whose startling régime Vengeance gave way to Forgiveness, Cruelty to Mercy, Pride to Humility, and the love of Family life to the larger Brotherhood which the dust of ages has proved powerless to dim, and the centuries, as they roll onward, have strengthened with indestructible unity. ”

“ But, like "a Hindu caste," each class kept strictly to themselves. But when all is said and done, the most remarkable development of society during the nineteenth century has been in connection with the People. So far they had played no part in the government of the country, which was still wholly in the hands of the wealthy and powerful, while they, the workers—those who toiled with their hands, who gave their lives, courage, patience, skill, endurance, obedience; who suffered and died, striving not ignobly—had no share, nor was it possible for them to rise in the social scale. ”

“ Most of the effects of the Danish settlement in England have been merely the accentuation of those already existing characteristics bequeathed by their predecessors. If family life had been cherished by the Anglo-Saxon people, it was yet more closely united by bonds of blood among the Danes; if freedom had been the watchword of the first comers, intensely free was the existence of the liberty loving Scandinavian; if devotion to Woden insisted on human sacrifice under the old régime, yet more persistently bloodthirsty were the pagan hordes of the ninth century. ”

“ If the Middle Ages die away in a wail of sadness, if the rude manners, low morality, coarse tastes, and gross ignorance of the people seem in strong contrast with the influence of the Medieval Church, it must be remembered that degeneration invariably precedes renaissance, that the darkest hour is before the dawn, and that a new life was about to burst over England, pregnant with a new morality, a new refinement of tastes, a new enthusiasm for learning, and a more generous interpretation of the needs of humanity by the Church of England. ”

“ Pepys never wearies of describing to us his fine clothes; he tells us of new suits of silk and cloth trimmed with scarlet ribbons, of velvet coats and cloaks shining with silver buttons, of high-crowned beaver hats adorned with plumes of feathers and worn indoors as well as out, of lace ruffles and rich falling collars of lace, high-heeled shoes, and the introduction into England of the famous wig. This was in the year 1664, when the large periwig or peruke found its way, like all other fashions, from the Court of the French King. One by one men and women succumbed to the prevailing mode. ”

“ It is the "Norman graft upon the sturdy Saxon tree" that has made the English people great, and produced the scholars, soldiers and sailors that are the pride of her history. It is likewise this blend of Norman, Saxon, and Dane, this single race of Englishmen, that has built up the young nation across the restless Atlantic. Our kin are their kin, our forefathers are their forefathers, while we are bound together not only in blood and in speech, but by a rich inheritance of noble achievement and glorious association. ”

“ The age has been called one of "growing and inevitable sadness." Gone are the gay-coloured garments of medieval England, gone the merry manners of Elizabeth's light-hearted subjects, gone the boisterous jokes of the century that is past. And in place of this there is a dim yearning for amusement, a restless love of excitement, a desire to drown depression and stifle worry. Men, women, and even children, flock to places of cheap amusement for recreation which endeavour to supply the pathetic demand, thereby deteriorating public taste without satisfying morbid discontent. ”

“ Though for the most part men succumbed to what they deemed the Inevitable, and, "stupid in their despair," left their monasteries at the King's command, yet there were those who were ready to die for the faith they held to be more precious than life itself. Amid the prevailing gloom we see "gallant men whose high forms, the sunset of the old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory." ”

“ To the monks of early England we owe all our most precious treasures in literature as well as in art. Can our country ever forget the old monk of Jarrow, the father of English learning, and the ideal of the divinity of work which he put before his people? Who but the monks translated the Latin prayers into Saxon and illuminated the Saxon Gospels, adorning the margins with virgins and apostles in Anglo-Saxon dress playing on Anglo-Saxon instruments? ”

“ In the years of peace and prosperity that succeeded, the English life which is ours to-day developed apace. It is hardly necessary to say that it developed more slowly in the country than in London, for many parts of England were completely isolated in the middle of the eighteenth century. Miles of impassable road, deeply rutted or absolutely rotten, or some swollen river overflowing marshy country prevented much intercourse with the outer world, and rendered the appearance of a stranger an event giving rise to much curiosity and conversation. ”

“ No wonder they mostly preferred riding on horseback to sitting in these cumbrous carriages for any long distance. The woman of the period loved the open air and was an undoubted addition to the merry parties on horseback that wended their way ceaselessly along the bad roads either on pilgrimage or for purposes of merchandise. Indeed, the equality of the sexes is a characteristic feature of the Middle Ages. Men and women from the cradle to the grave shared life equally and naturally, neither was there any idea at this time of debarring them from taking their part in public affairs. ”

“ Indeed, the young nobles were not above plundering markets and fairs, or waylaying the heavily burdened merchant to deprive him of his goods.
Nevertheless, it is to the merchant class of England that we owe the "full tradition of Teutonic liberty." The right of self-government, the right of free speech in free meeting, the right to equal justice at the hands of equals, were brought safely across the ages of tyranny by the burghers and shopkeepers of our towns. ”

“ Brave, valorous, energetic, cheerful, if devoid of mercy and pity, they have bequeathed that force of character and "grit" to their successors—qualities which have carried England's sons successfully through unequal contest and inconceivable hardship, enabling them to ride fearlessly through surf and storm, and with dogged perseverance to build up new homes in distant lands, carving out the destiny of the British Empire, even as their forefathers carved out the destiny of England. ”

“ The universal habit of gambling led to duels. By an unwritten code of the times, men held that all shortcomings should be atoned for at the point of the sword or the mouth of the pistol. Thus brawls and squabbles of the coffee-house, disputed love-affairs, political strife or irritation produced by gaming or racing losses—all were settled by this "reigning curse," as it has been called. ”

“ Let us then imagine a life with no smoking, no wine, no tea, no coffee, no butter, no sugar, no potatoes, no eggs, no fowls—food stuffs apt to be popularly considered as essential to life. Nevertheless, the ancient Briton was a man of fine build and strong physique, ever ready to do and dare. True, he was short-lived in comparison with modern man, as he died about the age of fifty-five, but he was longer-lived than his predecessors, who had died for the most part at forty-five: so presumably the conditions of life were already improving. ”

“ Some knowledge of the outlines of English history is presupposed, so that we may transport ourselves in imagination into that vanished past, which no historian can adequately bridge over. We can realise those silent figures, whose names are so familiar, in the outward guise that conveys so much to our material natures, calling up, perhaps, some faint conception of the appearance of our ancestors in the days that are gone. ”

“ It was a period of energy, wit, and genius, an age of vast enterprise crowned with success, in the midst of which "it is half ludicrous, half pathetic to turn to the central figure of all, Anne Stuart, a fat, placid, middle-aged woman, full of infirmities, with little about her of the picturesque yet artificial brightness of her time or of her race, and no gleam of reflection in her to answer to the wit and genius which have made her age so illustrious. ”

“ Long ago the Celtic population had realised the value of the monastery. On storm-beaten shores and wind-swept islands little settlements had arisen, in which many a devoted monk had spent his self-denying life of prayer and meditation. But it was not till the Benedictine monks had won over the main body of English by their example of high living, as much as by their teaching, that monastic life became at all universal in England. ”

“ There was little enough organisation ready to cope with the masses of children added to the population. Both in town and country the children of England at this time were the wildest morsels of humanity, plunged in ignorance, steeped in vice, only half clothed and half fed, and, moreover, in many parts of the country, worked in mine and factory as little beasts of burden, atoms of a great industrial machine. ”

“ In every part of the country a great love of gardening was growing up, and landscape gardening was taking the place of the formal symmetrical garden. Hedges were no longer clipt in fantastic shape and form, trees were no longer grown in pyramids or cones, flower-beds no longer laid out in geometrical form. Symmetry of design gave way to a wild, luxuriant, irregular, and natural beauty, untamed by the hand of man. New plants were imported, fresh evergreens were grown, exotics increased, books on gardening poured forth, and the interest in botany and gardening grew apace. ”

“ Deplorable indeed were the morals of the newly-restored Court. The age was one of "coarse wit and loud laughter, of clever talk, of dancing, duelling, dining, theatre-going, card-playing, horse-racing, and of amusement raised to the dignity of a fine art." Passions sternly repressed by the Puritans burst forth unrestrained as soon as the check was withdrawn. The desire for amusement was indulged to the full, little or no restraint being imposed. Cock-fighting and bull-baiting, "butcherly sports," were once more freely witnessed by all classes of society. ”

“ THIS sketch of the social life of our forefathers throughout the ages that are past is dedicated to all English-speaking peoples, who are proud to look back to a common ancestry. The race has burst the bounds of its old island home. Far and wide, over the length and breadth of the world, England's children are scattered, but they never forget that the old country is the land of their fathers. Their distant homes are yet English homes—they themselves are yet Englishmen. ”

“ Never was any social revolution more silent, more swift and resistless. Everywhere the old order of things is slipping away, everywhere the new and unexpected is asserting itself. Perhaps one of the greatest modern developments is that which has taken place in regard to the position of woman in England. The steps whereby she obtained her "emancipation" have already been noted. Today society is still somewhat bewildered over her new status. ”

“ Such then, very briefly, were the manners and customs of our forefathers who made their homes in England during the fifth and sixth centuries. They were blue-eyed, fair-haired giants, sturdy pagans, fierce warriors, fearless lovers of sea and storm, reckless of life for life's sake, ever ready to suffer and if need be to die for one of the Blood. ”

“ This is not the place to repeat the charming story of the Renaissance, that movement which marks the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World, or to dwell on the spirit of the time which witnessed the liberation of reason and gave rise to that passionate recognition of humanity—that escape, "at first hesitating and then triumphant, from a circumscribed life of ecclesiastical tradition into "joyous freedom and unfettered spontaneity." ”

“ It was distinctly a merrier England than is the England of to-day. Dancing, drinking, card-playing, dining, hunting, took up a large share of men's thoughts. "Every town had its fair, every village its wake." ”

“ None were too old, too sickly, too feeble, or too ignorant to regard themselves as fit for teaching the unhappy young of these days—so unlike the honoured band of teachers who are doing some of the finest work in our land to-day. Look at a boys' school in 1869, the year before the great Education Act, which followed the Reform Act and formed a turning-point in the educational system of our country. ”

“ But when all is said and done, when carpets have been substituted for rushes, electric light for tallow dips, forks for fingers, railway for coach, mercy for brutality—yet behind these external changes, transitory by reason of the law of progress, lies unchangeable human nature, ever the same with its hopes and fears, its capacity for joy and sorrow. Across the dim ages move the same men and women as to-day ”

“ Things will never go well in England so long as goods be not in common and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than we are? On what grounds have they deserved it? If we all come of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their pride? ”

“ But the "quality," as heretofore, still led the manners and fashions of the people, and it is to them we must still look for the momentous changes of the eighteenth century. The century divides itself into two parts: the first half coarse, godless, merry and careless; the latter part growing in refinement, delicacy, simplicity, and soberness.
Amid the numerous varieties in women's dress, the most marked characteristics were the hoop and the powdered head-dress. The famous hoop petticoats had been increasing steadily in size and clumsiness since the reign of Queen Anne. ”

“ After a dry winter and spring, June dawned with unusual heat, and the twelfth and last plague swept over England, carrying off hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children of every class, deadening all effort, paralysing all commerce, and defeating all attempts to stay it. ”

“ At the height of their wealth, when luxury in food and dress was at its zenith and the poor were down-trodden and miserable, the heads of many great houses in England hurled themselves into a conflict, known as the Wars of the Roses, from which they never again rose to their ancient pride and splendour. ”