Overview

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children'sgames from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for thefew people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called Keepto-morrow dark, and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) Cheat the Prophet. The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clevermen have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait untilall the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else.That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy.And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen tobe inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned trueprophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or lessrational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the Prophet was made farmore difficult than it had ever been before. The reason was, that there were so manyprophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When aman did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck himafterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when adean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was notfulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see theground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, andwhen they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him upand gave him some high post in the State. And all these clever men were at work givingaccounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted andruthless, and all quite different. And it seemed that the good old game of hoodwinking yourancestors could not really be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat andsleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day and night on what theirdescendants would be likely to do

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