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All of you, Christians, protestant and orthodox, neo-revelators, charlatans and dupes, listen to the first verse of the humanitarian hymn upon God's mercy: "In proportion as the principle of division of labor receives complete application, the worker becomes weaker, narrower, and more dependent. Art advances: the artisan recedes!" Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
Here, at any rate, was an honest man, or the story would not have ended thus; but of the rest and there are many who in early ages aspired to the attainment of flight we have no more reason to credit their claims than those of charlatans who flourish in every age. We need no more. That was an age of flying saints, as also of flying dragons.
Yedo, the metropolis of wealth and fashion, became also the capital of literature and the fine arts, and a characteristic of the era was the disappearance of charlatans, whether laymen or bonzes, who professed to teach the arcana of special accomplishments.
The thing as practised by ignorant charlatans is unworthy of attention or respect where there's a dim light and a dark cabinet, and a parcel of sentimental gulls gathered together, with their faith and their shudders and their tears all ready, and one and the same fatty degeneration of protoplasm and humbug comes out and materializes himself into anybody you want, grandmother, grandchild, brother-in-law, Witch of Endor, John Milton, Siamese twins, Peter the Great, and all such frantic nonsense no, that is all foolish and pitiful.
They didn't look or act like cynical charlatans or implacable enemies of progress and enlightenment. They were more like a lot of schoolboys whose teacher is taking them on a surprise outing. "Bet this'll be the biggest day in their lives," Travis said. "Oh, sure. This'll be a grandfather-story ten generations from now."
Some of them reformed; this good charlatan's fortune increased like his reputation. The Abbé de Pons, the enthusiast, put him far above the Maréchal de Villars: "The Maréchal kills men," he said to him, "but you make them live." People learned at last that Villars Water was only river water; they would have no more of it; and went to other charlatans.
"French," was Cleek's silent comment upon him. "One of those charlatans who infest the streets of Paris with their so-called 'fortune-telling birds, who, for ten centimes, pick out an envelope with their beaks as a means of telling you what the future is supposed to hold. What has made a woman like this pick up with a fellow of his stamp? Hum-m-m!
Get ye gone, ye Bandellos and ye Straparolas and ye other charlatans who would fain possess yourselves of the empire which the genius of Boccaccio bequeathed to humanity. There is but one master, and to him we render grateful homage.
These two events roused the turbulent part of the population of Paris almost to frenzy, and resulted in a rising called the émeute of October 31. "The party of the Commune," says M. de Sarcey, "was composed partly of charlatans, partly of dupes, that is, the real members of the Commune as a party. The rank and file were simply roughs, ready for any mischief, and, we may add, for any plunder."
The usual crowd of charlatans, camp-followers, hangers-on may be found loudly praising their own wares in this Neo-Impressionist school if school it be but it is only fair to judge the most serious and gifted painters and sculptors of the day. Already there are signs that the extremists, contortionists, hysterical humbugs, Zonists, Futurists, and fakers generally are disappearing.
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