the influence of Fear, to tell the least little truth about him will put
a whole assembly into a sort of blankness.

This vice has for its most laughable effect the raising of a whole host
of phantoms, and when a State is so far gone that civic Fear is quite
normal to the citizens, then you will find them blenching with terror at
a piece of print, a whispered accusation. Bankruptcy, though they be
possessed of nothing, and even the ill-will of women. Moneylenders under
this influence have the greatest power, next after them, blackmailers of
all kinds, and next after these eccentrics who may blurt or break out.
Those who have least power in the decline of a State, are priests,
soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and
saints.




On Past Greatness


There lies in the North-East of France, close against the Belgian
frontier and within cannon shot of the famous battlefield of Malplaquet,
a little town called Bavai--I have written of it elsewhere.

Coming into this little town you seem to be entering no more than a
decent, unimportant market borough, a larger village meant for country
folk, perhaps without a history and certainly without fame.

As you come to look about you one thing after another enlivens your
curiosity and suggests something at once enormous and remote in the