Chapter X: Beginnings of Civilization

by Mark Twain

　　The Round Table soon heard of the challenge, andof course it was a good deal discussed, for suchthings interested the boys. The king thought I oughtnow to set forth in quest of adventures, so that Imight gain renown and be the more worthy to meetSir Sagramor when the several years should have rolledaway. I excused myself for the present; I said itwould take me three or four years yet to get thingswell fixed up and going smoothly; then I should beready; all the chances were that at the end of thattime Sir Sagramor would still be out grailing, so novaluable time would be lost by the postponement; Ishould then have been in office six or seven years,and I believed my system and machinery would be sowell developed that I could take a holiday without itsworking any harm.I was pretty well satisfied with what I had alreadyaccomplished. In various quiet nooks and corners Ihad the beginnings of all sorts of industries under way-- nuclei of future vast factories, the iron and steelmissionaries of my future civilization. In these weregathered together the brightest young minds I couldfind, and I kept agents out raking the country formore, all the time. I was training a crowd of ignorantfolk into experts -- experts in every sort of handiworkand scientific calling. These nurseries of mine wentsmoothly and privately along undisturbed in their obscure country retreats, for nobody was allowed tocome into their precincts without a special permit --for I was afraid of the Church.I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sundayschools the first thing; as a result, I now had an admirable system of graded schools in full blast in thoseplaces, and also a complete variety of Protestant congregations all in a prosperous and growing condition.Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wantedto; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But Iconfined public religious teaching to the churches andthe Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in myother educational buildings. I could have given myown sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian without any trouble, but that would have beento affront a law of human nature: spiritual wants andinstincts are as various in the human family as arephysical appetites, complexions, and features, and aman is only at his best, morally, when he is equippedwith the religious garment whose color and shape andsize most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion, angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it; and, besides, I was afraid of aunited Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiestconceivable, and then when it by and by gets intoselfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it meansdeath to human liberty and paralysis to humanthought.All mines were royal property, and there were agood many of them. They had formerly been workedas savages always work mines -- holes grubbed in theearth and the mineral brought up in sacks of hide byhand, at the rate of a ton a day; but I had begun toput the mining on a scientific basis as early as I could.Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when SirSagramor's challenge struck me.Four years rolled by -- and then! Well, you wouldnever imagine it in the world. Unlimited power is theideal thing when it is in safe hands. The despotism ofheaven is the one absolutely perfect government. Anearthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect earthlygovernment, if the conditions were the same, namely,the despot the perfectest individual of the human race,and his lease of life perpetual. But as a perishableperfect man must die, and leave his despotism in thehands of an imperfect successor, an earthly despotismis not merely a bad form of government, it is the worstform that is possible.My works showed what a despot could do with theresources of a kingdom at his command. Unsuspectedby this dark land, I had the civilization of the nineteenth century booming under its very nose! It wasfenced away from the public view, but there it was, agigantic and unassailable fact -- and to be heard from,yet, if I lived and had luck. There it was, as sure afact and as substantial a fact as any serene volcano,standing innocent with its smokeless summit in theblue sky and giving no sign of the rising hell in itsbowels. My schools and churches were children fouryears before; they were grown-up now; my shops ofthat day were vast factories now; where I had a dozentrained men then, I had a thousand now; where I hadone brilliant expert then, I had fifty now. I stoodwith my hand on the cock, so to speak, ready to turnit on and flood the midnight world with light at anymoment. But I was not going to do the thing in thatsudden way. It was not my policy. The peoplecould not have stood it; and, moreover, I should havehad the Established Roman Catholic Church on myback in a minute.No, I had been going cautiously all the while. Ihad had confidential agents trickling through thecountry some time, whose office was to undermineknighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw alittle at this and that and the other superstition, and soprepare the way gradually for a better order of things.I was turning on my light one-candle-power at a time,and meant to continue to do so.I had scattered some branch schools secretly aboutthe kingdom, and they were doing very well. I meantto work this racket more and more, as time wore on, ifnothing occurred to frighten me. One of my deepestsecrets was my West Point -- my military academy. Ikept that most jealously out of sight; and I did thesame with my naval academy which I had establishedat a remote seaport. Both were prospering to mysatisfaction.Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my headexecutive, my right hand. He was a darling; he wasequal to anything; there wasn't anything he couldn'tturn his hand to. Of late I had been training him forjournalism, for the time seemed about right for a startin the newspaper line; nothing big, but just a smallweekly for experimental circulation in my civilizationnurseries. He took to it like a duck; there was aneditor concealed in him, sure. Already he had doubledhimself in one way; he talked sixth century and wrotenineteenth. His journalistic style was climbing, steadily; it was already up to the back settlement Alabamamark, and couldn't be told from the editorial output ofthat region either by matter or flavor.We had another large departure on hand, too. Thiswas a telegraph and a telephone; our first venture inthis line. These wires were for private service only,as yet, and must be kept private until a riper dayshould come. We had a gang of men on the road,working mainly by night. They were stringing groundwires; we were afraid to put up poles, for they wouldattract too much inquiry. Ground wires were goodenough, in both instances, for my wires were protectedby an insulation of my own invention which was perfect. My men had orders to strike across country,avoiding roads, and establishing connection with anyconsiderable towns whose lights betrayed their presence, and leaving experts in charge. Nobody couldtell you how to find any place in the kingdom, fornobody ever went intentionally to any place, but onlystruck it by accident in his wanderings, and then generally left it without thinking to inquire what its namewas. At one time and another we had sent out topographical expeditions to survey and map the kingdom,but the priests had always interfered and raised trouble.So we had given the thing up, for the present; itwould be poor wisdom to antagonize the Church.As for the general condition of the country, it wasas it had been when I arrived in it, to all intents andpurposes. I had made changes, but they were necessarily slight, and they were not noticeable. Thus far,I had not even meddled with taxation, outside of thetaxes which provided the royal revenues. I hadsystematized those, and put the service on an effectiveand righteous basis. As a result, these revenues werealready quadrupled, and yet the burden was so muchmore equably distributed than before, that all the kingdom felt a sense of relief, and the praises of my administration were hearty and general.Personally, I struck an interruption, now, but I didnot mind it, it could not have happened at a bettertime. Earlier it could have annoyed me, but noweverything was in good hands and swimming rightalong. The king had reminded me several times, oflate, that the postponement I had asked for, four yearsbefore, had about run out now. It was a hint that Iought to be starting out to seek adventures and get upa reputation of a size to make me worthy of the honorof breaking a lance with Sir Sagramor, who was stillout grailing, but was being hunted for by various reliefexpeditions, and might be found any year, now. Soyou see I was expecting this interruption; it did nottake me by surprise.