in being in a kind of personal way connected with amazing events.
We are all privately vain of such a thing; we are all alike; a
king is a king by accident; the reason the rest of us are not
kings is merely due to another accident; we are all made out of
the same clay, and it is a sufficient poor quality.
Below the kings, these remarks are in the air these days; I
know it well as if I were hearing them:
THE COMMANDER: “He was in my army.”
THE GENERAL: “He was in my corps.”
THE COLONEL: “He was in my regiment. A brute. I remember
him well.”
THE CAPTAIN: “He was in my company. A troublesome
scoundrel. I remember him well.”
THE SERGEANT: “Did I know him? As well as I know you.
Why, every morning I used to–” etc., etc.; a glad, long story,
told to devouring ears.
THE LANDLADY: “Many’s the time he boarded with me. I can
show you his very room, and the very bed he slept in. And the
charcoal mark there on the wall–he made that. My little Johnny
saw him do it with his own eyes. Didn’t you, Johnny?”
It is easy to see, by the papers, that the magistrate and
the constables and the jailer treasure up the assassin’s daily
remarks and doings as precious things, and as wallowing this week
in seas of blissful distinction. The interviewer, too; he tried
to let on that he is not vain of his privilege of contact with
this man whom few others are allowed to gaze upon, but he is
human, like the rest, and can no more keep his vanity corked in
than could you or I.
Some think that this murder is a frenzied revolt against the
criminal militarism which is impoverishing Europe and driving the
starving poor mad. That has many crimes to answer for, but not
this one, I think. One may not attribute to this man a generous
indignation against the wrongs done the poor; one may not dignify
him with a generous impulse of any kind. When he saw his
photograph and said, “I shall be celebrated,” he laid bare the
impulse that prompted him. It was a mere hunger for notoriety.
There is another confessed case of the kind which is as old as
history–the burning of the temple of Ephesus.
Among the inadequate attempts to account for the
assassination we must concede high rank to the many which have
described it as a “peculiarly brutal crime” and then added that
it was “ordained from above.” I think this verdict will not be
popular “above.” If the deed was ordained from above, there is
no rational way of making this prisoner even partially
responsible for it, and the Genevan court cannot condemn him
without manifestly committing a crime. Logic is logic, and by
disregarding its laws even the most pious and showy theologian
may be beguiled into preferring charges which should not be
ventured upon except in the shelter of plenty of lightning-rods.
I witnessed the funeral procession, in company with friends,
from the windows of the Krantz, Vienna’s sumptuous new hotel. We
came into town in the middle of the forenoon, and I went on foot
from the station. Black flags hung down from all the houses; the
aspects were Sunday-like; the crowds on the sidewalks were quiet
and moved slowly; very few people were smoking; many ladies wore
deep mourning, gentlemen were in black as a rule; carriages were
speeding in all directions, with footmen and coachmen in black
clothes and wearing black cocked hats; the shops were closed; in
many windows were pictures of the Empress: as a beautiful young
bride of seventeen; as a serene and majestic lady with added
years; and finally in deep black and without ornaments–the
costume she always wore after the tragic death of her son nine
years ago, for her heart broke then, and life lost almost all its
value for her. The people stood grouped before these pictures,
and now and then one saw women and girls turn away wiping the
tears from their eyes.
In front of the Krantz is an open square; over the way was