On (Essays Collection). Hilaire Belloc

an End none is so hesitating as the ending of a book which the Publisher will have so long and the writer so short: and the Public (God Bless the Public) will have whatever it is given.

      Books, however much their lingering, books also must Come to an End. It is abhorrent to their nature as to the life of man. They must be sharply cut off. Let it be done at once and fixed as by a spell and the power of a Word; the word

      FINIS

      ON EVERYTHING

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       On Song

       On an Empty House

       The Landfall

       The Little Old Man

       The Long March

       On Saturnalia

       A Little Conversation in Herefordshire

       On the Rights of Property

       The Economist

       A Little Conversation in Carthage

       The Strange Companion

       The Visitor

       A Reconstruction of the Past

       The Reasonable Press

       Asmodeus

       The Death of the Comic Author

       On certain Manners and Customs

       The Statesman

       The Duel

       On a Battle, or “Journalism,” or “Points of View”

       A Descendant of William Shakespeare

       On the Approach to Western England

       The Weald

       On London and the Houses in it

       On Old Towns

       A Crossing of the Hills

       The Barber

       On High Places

       On Some Little Horses

       On Streams and Rivers

       On Two Manuals

       On Fantastic Books

       The Unfortunate Man

       The Contented Man

       The Missioner

       The Dream

       The Silence of the Battlefields

       Novissima Hora

       On Rest

      ON SONG

       Table of Contents

      Some say that when that box was opened wherein lay ready the evils of the world (and a woman opened it) Hope flew out at last.

      That is a Pagan thing to say and a hopeless one, for the true comfort that remained for men, and that embodied and gave reality to their conquering struggle against every despair, was surely Song.

      If you would ask what society is imperilled of death, go to one in which song is extinguished. If you would ask in what society a permanent sickness oppresses all, and the wealthy alone are permitted to make the laws, go to one in which song is a fine art and treated with criticism and used charily, and ceases to be a human thing. But if you would discover where men are men, take for your test whether songs are always and loudly sung.

      Sailors sing. They have a song for work and songs for every part of their work, and they have songs of reminiscence and of tragedy, and many farcical songs; some brutal songs, songs of repose, and songs in which is packed the desire for a distant home.

      Soldiers also sing, at least in those Armies where soldiers are still soldiers. And the Line, which is the core and body of any army, is the most singing of them all. The Cavalry hardly sing, at least until they get indoors, for it would be a bumping sort of singing, and gunners cannot sing for noise, while the drivers are busy riding and leading as well. But the Line sings; and if you will consider quickly, all the great armies of the world, and consider them justly, not as the pedants do, but as men do who really feel the past, you would hear mounting from them always continual song. Those men who marched behind Cæsar in his triumph sang a song, and the words of it still remain (so I am told); the armies of Louis XIV and of Napoleon, of the Republic, and even of Algiers, made songs of their own which have passed into the great treasury of European letters. And though it is difficult to believe it, it is true, the little troops of the Parliament marching down the river made a song about Mother Bunch, coupled with the name