Project Gutenberg's 'That Very Mab', by May Kendall and Andrew Lang

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Title: 'That Very Mab'

Author: May Kendall and Andrew Lang

Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #21337]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'THAT VERY MAB' ***

Produced by David Widger

'THAT VERY MAB'

By May Kendall and Andrew Lang

'Ah! now I see Queen Mab has been with you'

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1885

CONTENTS.

I. UNDER TWO FLAGS
II. DISILLUSIONS
III. THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION
IV. THE POET AND THE PALAEONTOTHEOLOGIST
V. ST. GEORGE FOR MERRY ENGLAND
VI. JUSTICE AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY
VII. MACHINERY AND THE SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT
VIII. THE BEAUTIFUL
IX. IN WHICH THE NIHILIST, THE DEMOCRAT, AND THE PROFESSOR
OFFER A SUGGESTION TO THE BISHOP
X. THE SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF THE NIHILIST
XI. HOME AND FOREIGN POLICY COMBINED
XII. THE DELUGE

'THAT VERY MAB'

CHAPTER I. -- UNDER TWO FLAGS.

'You send out teachers of religion to undermine and ruin the
people.'--Black Flag Proclamation to the French, 1883.

The moonlight, in wave on wave of silver, flooded all the Sacred Island.
Far away and faint ran the line of the crests of Samoa, like the hills
of heaven in the old ballad, or a scene in the Italian opera. Then came
a voice from the Calling Place, and the smooth sea thrilled, and all the
fishes leaped, and the Sacred Isle itself was moved, and shuddered to
its inmost heart. Again and again came the voice, and now it rose and
fell in the cadences of a magical song (or _Karakia_, if we _must_ have
local colour), and the words were not of this world. Then, behold, the
smooth seas began to break and plash round the foremost cape of the Holy
Island, and to close again behind, like water before the keel and behind
the stern of a running ship, so they plashed, and broke, and fell. Next
the surface was stirred far off with the gambolling and sporting of
innumerable fishes; the dolphin was tumbling in the van; the flying fish
hovered and shone and sank; and clearer, always,