Looking Backward

Looking Backward

Edward Bellamy

I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!"

you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen

fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was

about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after

Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east

wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote period

marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the present

year of grace, 2000.

These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add

that I am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that no

person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises

to be a mere imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I earnestly

assure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will undertake,

if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. If

I may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying the

assumption, that I know better than the reader when I was born, I will

go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter part

of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything like

it, did not exist, although the elements which were to develop it were

already in ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred to modify the

immemorial division of society into the four classes, or nations, as

they may be more fitly called, since the differences between them were

far greater than those between any nations nowadays, of the rich and

the poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also

educated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness

enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, and

occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of

life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others,

rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand-parents

had lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I had

any, would enjoy a like easy existence.

But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. Why should

the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render

service? The answer is that my great-grandfather had accumulated a sum

of money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum, you

will naturally infer, must have been very large not to have been

exhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however,

was not the fact. The sum had been originally by no means large. It

was, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been supported

upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use without

consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like magic, but was

merely an ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carried

to great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting the burden of one's

support on the shoulders of others. The man who had accomplished this,

and it was the end all sought, was said to live on the income of his

investments. To explain at this point how the ancient methods of

industry made this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stop

now to say that interest on investments was a species of tax in

perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which a person

possessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not be

supposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterous

according to modern notions was never criticized by your ancestors. It

had been the effort of lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages to

abolish interest, or at least to limit it to the smallest possible

rate. All these efforts had, however, failed, as they necessarily must

The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of the

annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth

century, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doing

honor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in the

war for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors of

the war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of music,

were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths of

flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the ceremony being a

very solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett had

fallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit of

making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay.

I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return to

the city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of my

betrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an evening

paper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which would

probably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. I

remember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and the

objurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted,

which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers in

particular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and the

remarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon the

unprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to make

those gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were going

from bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what we

should come to soon. "The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett's

saying, "is that the working classes all over the world seem to be

going crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm sure

I should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the other

day where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took place

which those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any place now

where society could be called stable except Greenland, Patagonia, and

the Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what they were about,"

somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western civilization.

They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They saw it was

nothing but dynamite in disguise."

After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade her

that it would be better to be married at once without waiting for the

completion of the house, spending the time in travel till our home was

ready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening, the mourning

costume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off to great

advantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even now with my

mind's eye just as she looked that night. When I took my leave she

followed me into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. There was

no circumstance out of the common to distinguish this parting from

previous occasions when we had bade each other good-by for a night or a

day. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, or I am sure in

hers, that this was more than an ordinary separation.

Ah, well!

The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for a

lover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I was a confirmed

sufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise perfectly well had been

completely fagged out that day, from having slept scarcely at all the

two previous nights. Edith knew this and had insisted on sending me

home by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go to bed at once.