Programming note: Join me tomorrow, Saturday, for an Australia Day-ish edition of my Serenade Radio show, On the Town. The fun starts at 5pm Greenwich Mean Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe/12 midday North American Eastern, and 4am on the morning of Australia Day in Sydney (sorry about that). You might find the repeat more convivial - that's 4pm on the afternoon of Australia Day. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
With that out of the way and just ahead of Episode Eight of our current Tale for Our Time, a word to the wise:
As I predicted four years ago, before America's laughably misnamed "election" of 2020, things have cratered very fast on the free-speech front - in Canada, Australia, Europe and, most appallingly of all, in the United Kingdom, where, under an evil and ever more brazenly authoritarian government, you'll get more prison time for a Facebook post than for raping a child. Meanwhile, the Chancellor of Germany explains at Davos that his countrymen enjoy total free speech - unless they're minded to say anything "extreme right", such as expressing misgivings about the stabbings of children. In France, Rumble remains banned. Only in America has there been any good news for freedom of expression.
In such a world, we thank all of you who swing by the Steyn shingle as part of your daily rounds. As I have said often, I so miss the Internet of yore and the heyday of independent websites in the early years of this century - before the woketalitarians seized control. So I'm particularly touched in such an environment by your kind comments about our content here, including this latest audio adventure, written in 1907 and eerily prescient about where our world is right now. Elizabeth, a First Fortnight Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from New York State, writes:
This is wonderful, Mark. What better way to start the new year? I have been wanting to read this book ever since one or two of the columnists over at The Catholic Thing had made mention of Benson's work.
Thank you for bringing it to the fore.
Do tell us about the musical setting you've chosen?
Thank you, Elizabeth. We seem to have started a new tradition at Tales for Our Time whereby, if the author has a musical member of the family, the relative supplies the theme music. On Mystery in White, Jefferson Farjeon's sister was Eleanor Farjeon, who wrote "Morning Has Broken", so we used one of her carols. On Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson's brother (as I mentioned in my introduction) wrote the words of "Land of Hope and Glory", so I used another of his collaborations with Edward Elgar. I am a little reluctant to credit it to Sir Edward, if only because I fret that he might not have cared for what I did: I took a very short phrase of his that tickled my fancy, and edited it into sounding like a rather dramatic theme tune. I trust his shade will forgive me.
In tonight's episode of Lord of the World, on the eve of the expected war with the Eastern Empire, there is a sudden outbreak of world peace - thanks to the mysterious American Felsenburgh:
"The best has happened. It is all over in the East. Felsenburgh has done it. Now listen. I cannot come home to-night. It will be announced in Paul's House in two hours from now. We are communicating with the Press. Come up here to me at once. You must be present.... Can you hear?"
"Oh, yes."
"Come then at once. It will be the greatest thing in history. Tell no one... Felsenburgh will be there."
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Episode Eight by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier installments of Lord of the World can be found here - and, if your tastes incline to the more obviously brutal, my serialisation of Nineteen Eighty-Four starts here.
Thank you again for all your comments, thumbs up or down, on this latest tale. Very much appreciated. If you'd like to know more about The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget, for fellow fans of classic fiction and/or poetry, our Steyn Club Gift Membership.
I will see you back here tomorrow for Part Nine of Lord of the World.