The Shadow On The Dial And Other Essays PDF Download

Everything foretells the doom of authority. The killing of kings is no new industry; it is asancient as the race. Always and everywhere persons in high place have been the assassin'sprey. We have ourselves lost three Presidents by murder, and will doubtless lose manyanother before the book of American history is closed. If anything is new in this activity ofthe regicide it is found in the choice of victims. The contemporary "avenger" slays, not themerely great, but the good and the inoffensive-an American President who had struck thechains from millions of slaves; a Russian Czar who against the will and work of his ownpowerful nobles had freed their serfs; a French President from whom the French peoplehad received nothing but good; a powerless Austrian Empress, whose weight of sorrowstouched the world to tears; a blameless Italian King beloved of his people; such is a part ofthe recent record of the regicide whose every entry is a tale of infamy unrelieved by onecircumstance of justice, decency or good intention.And the great Brazilian liberator died in exile.This recent uniformity of malevolence in the choice of victims is not without significance.It points unmistakably to two facts: first, that the selections are made, not by the assassinsthemselves, but by some central control inaccessible to individual preference andunaffected by the fortunes of its instruments; second, that there is a constant purpose tomanifest an antagonism, not to any individual ruler, but to rulers; not to any system ofgovernment, but to Government. It is a war, not upon those in authority, but uponAuthority. The issue is defined, the alignment made, the battle set: Chaos against Order, Anarchy against Law