flames might happen to be quite
as beautiful as York Minster covered with carvings. But the carvings
produce more carvings. The flames produce nothing but a little black
heap. When any act has this cul-de-sac quality it matters little whether
it is done by a book or a sword, by a clumsy battle-axe or a chemical
bomb. The case is the same with ideas. The pessimist may be a proud
figure when he curses all the stars; the optimist may be an even prouder
figure when he blesses them all. But the real test is not in the
energy, but in the effect. When the optimist has said, "All things
are interesting," we are left free; we can be interested as much or
as little as we please. But when the pessimist says, "No things are
interesting," it may be a very witty remark: but it is the last witty
remark that can be made on the subject. He has burnt his cathedral; he
has had his blaze and the rest is ashes. The sceptics, like bees, give
their one sting and die. The pessimist must be wrong, because he says
the last word.

Now, this spirit that denies and that destroys had at one period of
history a dreadful epoch of military superiority. They did burn York
Minster, or at least, places of the same kind. Roughly speaking, from
the seventh century to the tenth, a dense tide of darkness, of chaos and
brainless cruelty, poured on these islands and on the western coasts
of the Continent, which well-nigh cut them off from all the white man's
culture for ever. And this is the final human test; that the varied
chiefs of that vague age were remembered or forgotten according to how
they had resisted this almost cosmic raid. Nobody thought of the modern
nonsense about races; everybody thought of the human race and its
highest achievements. Arthur was a Celt, and may have been a fabulous
Celt; but he was a fable on the right side. Charlemagne may have been a
Gaul or a Goth, but he was not a barbarian; he fought for the tradition
against the barbarians, the nihilists. And for this reason also, for
this reason, in the last resort, only, we call the saddest and in some
ways the least successful of the Wessex kings by the title of Alfred
the Great. Alfred was defeated by the barbarians again and again, he
defeated the barbarians again and again; but his victories were almost
as vain as his defeats. Fortunately he did not believe in the Time
Spirit or the Trend of Things or any such modern rubbish, and therefore
kept pegging away. But while his failures